Details
[HOW, WILLIAM]. Phytologia Britannica, natales exhibens indigenarum stirpium sponte emergentium. London: Octavian Pulleyn, 1650. 8vo, contemporary calf, rebacked. FIRST EDITION. Henrey 290 and I, pp. 97-98; Wing H-2956.
One of the early British floras, considered by some the second proper British flora, preceded only by Johnson's Mercurius. "How was much interested in botany but, unlike Johnson, he does not appear to have done much plant hunting. He evidently prepared his flora by first arranging the two catalogues of the Mercurius into one alphabetical list...[He] augmented this list with a number of other records of plants... The Phytologia had evidently proved popular, for when the edition was almost exhausted, the bookseller begged his friend Christopher Merret to undertake a new work to replace it. The result of this request was the publication in 1666 of Merret's Pinax rerum naturalium britannicarum, a catalogue of British flora, fauna, and fossils, the section of flora occupying more than two-thirds of the work" (Henrey).
Provenance: Early shelfmarks on title and Imprimatur leaf -- date "1656" written neatly below imprint in an early hand -- Right Honble. Thomas, Earl of Hadinton, bookplate on title verso -- Robert de Belder.
One of the early British floras, considered by some the second proper British flora, preceded only by Johnson's Mercurius. "How was much interested in botany but, unlike Johnson, he does not appear to have done much plant hunting. He evidently prepared his flora by first arranging the two catalogues of the Mercurius into one alphabetical list...[He] augmented this list with a number of other records of plants... The Phytologia had evidently proved popular, for when the edition was almost exhausted, the bookseller begged his friend Christopher Merret to undertake a new work to replace it. The result of this request was the publication in 1666 of Merret's Pinax rerum naturalium britannicarum, a catalogue of British flora, fauna, and fossils, the section of flora occupying more than two-thirds of the work" (Henrey).
Provenance: Early shelfmarks on title and Imprimatur leaf -- date "1656" written neatly below imprint in an early hand -- Right Honble. Thomas, Earl of Hadinton, bookplate on title verso -- Robert de Belder.