Plant Hunting Books

1996. Illustrated, pp 359, wrappers, clean unread copy. (An interesting collection of 27 essays. The first work for many years on this major contributor to the discovery of the plants and peoples of the Amazon).. (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

Edinburgh: Scottish Rock Garden Club, 1973. Illustrated, 8vo, pp 89, dark plum cloth, the very slightest signs of wear.. (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

London: New Flora and Silva Ltd, 1930. Illustrated, large 8vo, pp xii,113, scattered foxing, white buckram slightly rubbed and marked, spine slightly browned and marked, spine head slightly pulled. (LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, OF WHICH 450 WERE FOR SALE.) . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club, 1999. Well illustrated, small quarto, pp 286, a very good copy in mint dustwrapper. [An excellent biography of this important figure. He travelled in Sir James Clark Ross's epic voyage to Antarctica in 1839-43, visited Syria & Lebanon in 1860, the Atlas Mountains in Morocco in 1871, and to the Rockies in 1877. His survey produced the first map of Sikkim, which the British Army used for several decades.] . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club, 1999. Well illustrated, small quarto, pp 286, a very good copy in mint dustwrapper. [An excellent biography of this important figure. He travelled in Sir James Clark Ross's epic voyage to Antarctica in 1839-43, visited Syria & Lebanon in 1860, the Atlas Mountains in Morocco in 1871, and to the Rockies in 1877. His survey produced the first map of Sikkim, which the British Army used for several decades.] . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

Capel: Alpine Garden Society, 1932. The scarce first bound edition, limited to 250 copies. Illustrated, slim 8vo, pp 38, green cloth-backed boards, a bright copy in a dustwrapper which is rather soiled, lacking a small piece at the head of the spine, and lacking a rather larger piece on the upper corner.. (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

1996. Illustrated, small quarto, pp xvi, 192, paperback, covers very slightly worn. (Handel-Mazzetti began his plant-collecting in China in 1914 and was marooned there, by the outbreak of war, until 1919. His travels were published in a German journal in 1927 - a rare work. This first translation into English fills a major gap in the plant-collecting literature. It is, in addition, a valuable account of a country in transition.) . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

Edinburgh: HMSO, 1970. Frontispiece, pp vi, 147, a very good copy in dustwrapper. (Cross-referenced geographically). . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

London: John Murray, 1978. Illustrated, large 8vo, pp xiv, 352, a good copy in price-clipped dustwrapper. [Plant and animal hunters in eighteenth and nineteenth century America - the Bartrams, Lewis and Clark, Charles Wilson Peale, Alexander Wilson, Audubon, Rafinesque, Thomas Nuttall etc.]. (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

Pittsburgh: Hunt Botanical Library, 1964. (Reprinted from Huntia Volume 1). large slim 8vo, pp (31), paperback, a very good copy. . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

London: Figurehead, 1931. 8 photographic illustrations, slim 8vo, pp 78, very slight foxing, ,original blue cloth, very slightly worn, bookplate of Jim Russell, designed by Felix Kelly, and also bookplate of John Bond (at one time head of Savill gardens, Windsor). [The first chapter, "Searching the world for flowers" discusses places for plant hunting all over the world.; the second, "Guest of a Tibetan potentate" talks of a visit to Muli for plant hunting and of the monastery life there; the third chapter, "First through the Tsangpo Gorges" deals with the 1924 expedition when it was proved that there were no miraculous falls of the Tsangpo, and when tha author collected a great many Rhododendrons; the fourth chapter, "Risky hunting for the rare flower" reports eight months of successful plant collecting (1928) in the Lohit and Delei valleys; and the fifth chapter "Rafting through Indo-China" gives impressions of Laos while travelling by raft (1928-19290 from the Shan States to Luang Prabang.***Schweinfurth***] . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

London: Odhams, 1934. Illustrated eight page article contained in "Britain's Wonderland of Nature". The complete work is slightly used and rubbed, a little weak internally. [Also includes two articles by Richard St Barbe Baker, two by Malcolm Burr].. (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

London: Royal Horticultural Society. Four articles contained in Rhododendron and Camellia Yearbooks for 1947, 1949 & 1956. pp 11; 8; 4; 17. Green cloth, in rather torn dustwrappers. [ Also includes Ingwersen's "Rhododendrons of Europe", John Hutchinson's " Distribution of Rhododendrons", Wen-Pei Fang's "Rhododendrons of Mount Omei" and Macqueen Cowan's 30 page "Survey of the Genus Rhododendron". . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

Pacific Rhododendron Society, 1976. 10 pages, contained in the complete part (which runs to 64 pages, and also includes E.H. Wilson's "Rhododendrons of Eastern China"), paperback, a very good copy.. (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club, 2008. NEW EDITION. Well illustrated, quarto, pp 335, a very good copy in dustwrapper. [Newly re-published, with an extra chapter bringing the story right up to date. It describes the devastating flood of 2000 - with dramatic before and after photographs - and discusses plans for hydro-electric dams on the Tsangpo-Siang. It also highlights the many threats to conservation - logging, depopulation, hunting and tourism, as well as erosion and flooding. ]. (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

London: Gollancz, 1930. FIRST EDITION. Illustrated, pp 383, fore-edge foxed, title page slightly foxed, cloth showing only the very slightest signs of wear, spine head showing the very slightest signs of a bump, otherwise a very good copy. . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

London: Cape, 1949. First edition. Illustrated, pp 287, a very bright copy, lacking the small map facing page 101.. (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

London: Harrap, 1960. Illustrated, pp 191, fore-edge slightly foxed, cloth very slightly faded, spine very slightly bumped , no dustwrapper. . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

London: Harrap, 1960. Illustrated, pp 191, cloth very slightly faded, more faded on the spine, otherwise a good copy in a repaired and protected dustwrapper. . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

Sabah, 2002. Illustrated with 66 watercolours by Low, 8vo, pp vi, 206, a very good copy in dust wrapper. [Hugh Low was one of the adventurous group of nineteenth century European botanical collectors whose commercially-driven expeditions to less-known parts of the globe made enormous contributions to botanical knowledge. Low’s promising collecting career was abandoned in favour of a colonial government posting at Labuan from 1848, but during his two short years in Sarawak he discovered a number of spectacular new orchids and other flowers. Specimens and paintings of these were duly sent to Kew, where his nurseryman father had good connections, and informed the scientific work of its Director, Sir William Hooker. At Labuan, Low’s interests turned to economic horticulture but his expeditions to Mount Kinabalu and other parts of the Borneo coast resulted in the discovery of the giant Nepenthes and numerous other plants. Low’s journals of his time in Sarawak are published here for the first time, together with a biographical introduction by Sarawak historian, Professor Bob Reece, and extensive notes on Low’s botanical discoveries compiled by Dr Phillip Cribb a world authority on orchids. Also published for the first time are 59 paintings from Hugh Low’s collection (including 33 attributed to him) and four possibly by Rajah James Brooke, together with five previously published paintings by John Day. . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

Edinburgh, 2008. NEW. Well illustrated, large 8vo, pp 223, paperback, A very good copy. [ From his humble beginnings in the mid 18th century, Archibald Menzies came to be regarded as one of the foremost plant collectors of his time. Remarkably, this is one of the first full biographies of Menzies' eventful life: his early years in rural Perthsire, his time at RBGE as a gardener, his service as a naval surgeon at one of the bloodiest periods for the British Navy before his appointment as naturalist on HMS Discovery and his relationship with the irascible Captain George Vancouver. This well researched publication is a must for botanists, naval historians and general readers of Scottish history alike.] . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

Vol III numbers 3, 4 & 5. pp (c. 220), + Index to Volume III, 4to, wrappers to part IV rather soiled, the other two parts only very slightly worn and frayed, (Includes an account of Farrer's expedition of 1924-5, an obituary of Forrest by Wright Smith, E.H. Wilson's article on North-West China Rhododendrons collected by Rock, an obituary of E.H. Wilson by Balfour, an address by Kingdon Ward, and Cooper's article on Rhododendron species collected in Bhutan in 1914-16)....SCARCE. . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

Boston: David R. Godine, 2004. Hardback, small 8vo, pp xvi, 120, dustwrapper, a very good copy. [An excellent little biography].. (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1938. Illustrated with colour photos and one folding map, 8vo, pp (xiv) 322, green cloth slightly worn, no dustwrapper, all edges slightly foxed. [From the library of the botanist Maybud Campbell, with a note in her hand on the front endpaper saying that it was purchased at the Royal Horticultural Society's Red Cross Sale in October 1940.] . First Edition.. (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

Exeter, Devon: Caradoc Doy, 2006. Facsimile reprint, limited to 1000 numbered copies. (Originally published privately in 1906). Illustrated with 50 plates, large 8vo, pp 542, red cloth, cream dustwrapper, a very good copy. [Hortus Veitchii was originally published by the famous nursery firm of Veitch & Sons, Chelsea, London to commemorate the huge contribution made by this firm to western gardens in the introduction of new plants from around the world. This book is a study of the history of the botanical plant collecting explorers & hybridists, working for the nurseries of James Veitch & Son, Exeter and James Veitch & Sons, Chelsea during the period of 1840-1906. This includes chapters on the following; Lives of Travellers, Lives of Hybridists, Orchid Species, Orchid Hybrids, Stove & Greenhouse Plants, Insectivorous Plants, Exotic Ferns, Coniferous Trees, Trees & Shrubs and Climbing Plants, Herbaceous Plants, Bulbous Plants, Begonias, Hippeastrums, Nepenthes, Greenhouse Rhododendrons, Streptocarpus, Fruits and Vegetables. This facsimile edition of the classic work has been published in Great Britain in 2006 to mark the centenary of its original publication, with the objective that profits generated can be used to establish a permanent collection of plants introduced by the Veitch Nurseries. This will contain many plants which are now rare or endangered in the wild as well as many varieties well known to modern gardeners. Hortus Veitchii is a work of social and historical interest and has been produced with the intention of providing a reproduction of the original book as far as is possible. This has included careful hand scanning of each page, using quality materials of a similar nature and colour, reproducing the blocked foil lettering, block finishing to the cover as well as replicating the original dust jacket. The main difference has been to print to the same dimensions as Veitch’s Manual of Orchidaceous Plants and Veitch’s A Manual of Coniferae which is a more convenient size for modern bookcases and will sit neatly next to these other Veitch titles.. (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)

London: Williams and Norgate, 1938. Illustrated, 8vo, pp xxiv, 308, the scarce British edition, original cloth slightly faded bowed and marked, spine head slightly frayed, but perfectly sound copy otherwise and very ckean internally. . (more information)

Offered by Mike Park Ltd (United Kingdom)