The Flora of South Australia... From the Handbook of South Australia

Adelaide: W.C. Cox, Government Printer, 1875. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Adelaide, W.C. Cox, Government Printer, 1875. Octavo, 64 pages. Contemporary (and possibly original) quarter morocco (ruled and decorated in gilt) and cloth (lettered in gilt); covers lightly rubbed at the extremities, with the cloth lightly flecked and slightly sunned; thin line of white paint down most of the length of the narrow strip of cloth turned in at the leading edge of the front cover; an excellent copy. Dr Moritz Richard Schomburgk (1811-1891) was the director of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens at the time; in '1872 he was offered, but refused, the directorship of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography'). The 'Handbook of South Australia' mentioned on the title page is the (then) yet-to-be-published work by William Harcus, 'South Australia. Its History, Resources, and Productions'. Two editions appeared in 1876: an unillustrated Adelaide edition in flush-cut quarter cloth and papered boards, and an extensively-illustrated edition in cloth in London. Schomburgk's text appeared in both editions, accompanied in the latter instance by 11 full-page engravings (mainly of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens). Ferguson 15497 (not mentioning any of the above).