Principes De Botanique First Edition

First edition of this guide to botany for the amateur, an ambitious production with over 200 actual botanical specimens mounted to its plates.

• J. Gourdon and Ch. Fourcade.
• Principes de Botanique Comprenant l'Anatomie, l'Organographie et la Physiologie Végétales avec une Planche Lithographiée et un Atlas Naturel Composé de Seize Planches Renfermant Environ 250 échantillons fournis par des plantes diverses.
• Toulouse: L. Hébrail, Durand et Delpuech, 1875.
• VIII, 52, 17 numbered plates.
• Text in French and Latin.
• Plate I lithographed, all other plates with fifteen mounted specimens tipped onto each (6 specimens perished, thus 234 of 240).
• Original red cloth ruled in blind and lettered in gilt.

Two of the most flourishing scientific activities by everyday people in the 19th century were plant pressing and making herbariums. This production seeks to serve as a bridge between the specialist's science and its popular application, for example by focusing on the most easily found plants native to France and fore-grounding the common French terms, followed by the Linnean Latin names.

What sets this production apart is its painstaking format: for each copy, 240 plant specimens (leaves, flowers, seeds, roots) were carefully collected, preserved, and mounted to their delineated place on each plate. The introduction emphasizes the importance of this approach, arguing that one learns differently "par la vue et le toucher" [by seeing and touching], as well as more accurately and thoroughly than with illustrations.