INSTITUTIONES REI HERBARIAE

First Edition: Three volumes, I. (xvii), 697 with errata at the end. II. copper engraved title page followed by 250 copper engraved plates, (i colophon). III. copper engraved title page followed by 251-489 copper engraved plates, (i colophon), pages, full contemporary vellum with blind decoration on the boards, contents crisp a very good set.

Hunt, Catalogue of Botanical Books, Volume II, Part II, Printed Book 1701-1800, number 450 (describing the 3rd edition 1719), 'The significance of Tournefort to eighteenth-century botany, and to that of today, lies in his having classified all plants into genera. Unlike most predecessors, he assigned a single generic name to all willows (Salix), to all true lilies (Lilium), and so on. While Caspar Bauhim had also used a generic name for plants, it was Tournefort who first set the genera and their component species apart, treating the  genus as the smallest practical unit of classification, and considering the species as variants of the genus. To this day he is known among botanists as the father of the generic concept. Hundreds of generic names coined or accepted by him were later adopted by Linneaus and are in use today. Tournefort's name was commemorated by Linneaus when he named a large genus of tropical trees and shrubs Tournefortia.'

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pitton_de_Tournefort).  ‘Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (5 June 1656 – 28 December 1708) was a French botanist, notable as the first to make a clear definition of the concept of genus for plants. Botanist Charles Plumier was his pupil and accompanied him on his voyages. Tournefort was born in Aix-en-Provence and studied at the Jesuit convent there. It was intended that he enter the Church, but the death of his father allowed him to follow his interest in botany. After two years collecting, he studied medicine at Montpellier, but was appointed professor of botany at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris in 1683. During this time he travelled through Western Europe, particularly the Pyrenees, where he made extensive collections.

‘Between 1700 and 1702 he travelled through the islands of Greece and visited Constantinople, the borders of the Black Sea, Armenia, and Georgia, collecting plants and undertaking other types of observations. He was accompanied by the German botanist Andreas Gundelsheimer (1668–1715), and the artist Claude Aubriet (1651–1742). His description of this journey was published posthumously (Relation d'un voyage du Levant), he himself having been killed by a carriage in Paris; the road on which he died now bears his name (Rue de Tournefort in the 5ème arrondissement).’