Wild Flowers of the Cape of Good Hope

Dated 9 May 1950 and signed in Cape Town, this may have been Smuts's last foreword, which is, appropriately, for a botanical book. Running to some two thousand words, it begins: "This is the work for which I have been looking for a long time. And not I alone. Visitors to South Africa, struck by the beauty and unique character of our Cape Flora, have continually asked for some illustrated handbook of our flora, such as other countries have of theirs."

In his introduction, R H Compton writes: "The sequence of events which led to the production of this book began 15 years ago when Mrs. Garrett Rice held an exhibition of her paintings in Cape Town. These included a number depicting Cape wildflowers, which attracted the attention, among others, of the late Lady Phillips, who, with her husband, Sir Lionel Phillips, had already done so much to assist the publication of Marloth's great work on the flora of South Africa . . ."

Full-bound in green cloth-boards, plain endpapers, 24 pp of text + 250 colour plates with captions + vi pp of index. 

CONDITION. Although this is an ex-library copy, with two words in ink on the front free endpaper and rubber stamps on both front endpapers and the back paste-down, it is in very good condition throughout, with its contents complete, otherwise unmarked and undiscoloured. The spine is sunned, and the spine-ends and corners are rubbed.