Florae Brasiliensis Cyperographia sive descriptio Cyperacearum in Brasilia provenientium.

Wien, F. Beck, and Leipzig, F. Fleischer, 1842. Large Folio (46.2 x 30.5 cm). Title page, half title, 226 pp.; 30 fine, lithographed plates. Later blind half cloth over contemporary marbled boards. = A very rare, well-illustrated work, with the descriptions and detailed illustrations of many new and poorly known grasses from South America, in particular Brazil. Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck (1776-1858) "...was a prolific German botanist, physician, zoologist, and natural philosopher. He was a contemporary of Goethe and was born within the lifetime of Linnaeus. He described approximately 7,000 plant species (almost as many as Linnaeus himself). His last official act as president of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina was to admit Charles Darwin as a member. He was the author of numerous monographs on botany and zoology" (Wikipedia). This work is a substantive part of the never-completed Flora Brasiliensis, Ennumeratio Plantarum in Brasilia (1840-1906), edited (up to 1868) by C. F. P. Martius, being the complete volume 2, pars 1, fascicule 3, which was published on 1 April 1842. Titles and half-titles were provided for this work as part of the series, and as a work in itself - the latter titles are present here. Boards rather worn; the later cloth covers simple. Internally a very good, clean copy. A penciled note states that the text may be of the seldom seen 1965 Cramer reprint, but there is no clear, printed indication of this. There is no visible water mark; the paper does look old. The plates are certainly genuine. Stafleu and Cowan, 5538 (under Martius).