Ed Johan Anders Murray (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very good. First. Third edition, first Persoon edition (see below). Göttingen: Johann Christian Dieterich, 1797. Octavo (8" x 4 7/8", 204mm x 123mm). [Full collation available.] Bound in half mottled sheep over marbled paper boards. On the spine, six transverse gilt rolls with gilt fillets top-and-bottom. Author and title gilt to dark sheep in the second panel. Printed scrollwork head- and tail-bands. All edges of the text-block glazed aqua. Rubbed at the extremities, with some wear and loss at the fore-corners and tail. Mildly foxed throughout. A completely unsophisticated copy. Carl von Linné (Carolus Linnĉus, 1707-1778) was the ultimate taxonomist, the father of modern natural science, princeps botanicorum (prince of botanists). The system of binomial nomenclature that he perfected is the cornerstone of an international community of scientists, newly able to refer to a species using a standard language. His Systema Naturĉ (1735) was the first to lay out his scientific Weltanschauung, and went through 12 editions under his supervision, reflecting new discoveries. After his death, the Systema diverged; Johan Anders Murray excerpted the part relating only to plants (vegetabilia) into a "thirteenth" edition -- confusingly, there is also a thirteenth edition of the whole Systema -- that then ran to two further; thus, this "fifteenth" edition is in fact the third edition of the Systema Vegetabilium. The present item is the first edited by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon, himself an eminent mycologist. Pritzel 5430.