Plates Prepared Between the Years 1849 and 1859, to Accompany a Report on the Forest Trees of North America (Limited to 300 copies)

Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1891. Limited Edition. Quarto. After Gray's death, the 23 plates were thought to have been lost but had been carelessly stored in his sprawling house. These surviving plates (total in all the few known complete copies) were expertly drawn by Isaac Sprague. They have survived as fine chromolithographic plates (2 folding). The Smithsonian then issued them in portfolio format in an edition of 300 copies. The plates as in all auction copies are numbered 1-4, 8, 10, 20, 25, 27, 30, 31, 34, 35, 39, 40, 41, 46-50, 52, 63. The orignal title page as well as an introduction by Samuel P. Langley, who was Secretary of the Smithsonian, were mounted and laid in. Our copy collates the same as the Smithsonian copy (other copies have images sometimes reversed, possibly due to a binder's error; a few on OCLC appear to be missing plates). The last copies to appear at auction were in the early 1990's and typically brought between $2,000 to $4,000 even with stated imperfections. Since Asa Gray was the foremost botanist in the United States, the discovery of the surviving plates was a major find. His important contributions to American botanical science were also appreciated by Charles Darwin. Besides their mutual consideration of botanical specimens in light of evolution, he shared Darwin's controversial theories that began with the publication of the Origin of Species. As the Botanical Gazette noted: "The 300 copies are now distributed to the principle botanists and museum of the world as mementos of the distinguished man who gave so much of his life and labors to the department of knowledge. Asa Gray (1810-1888) became the Fisher Professor of Natural History at Harvard in 1842, a position he held until his death in 1888. Finely bound in a full modern olive green leather trimmed in a floral gilt, raised bands with compartments lettered and decorated in gilt, marbled endpapers, several of the plates had been professionally repaired . A very good copy housed within a cloth covered slipcase. [Nissen 751].