L'Obel, Matthias de (1538-1616)
Plantarum seu Stirpium Icones.

Antwerp: Plantin, 1581.

First illustrated edition, large oblong octavo, two volumes bound as one, illustrated with more than 2,000 botanical woodcuts, bound in full contemporary blind-stamped and rolled alum-tawed skin over boards, neatly rebacked, lacking original cloth ties, 18th and 19th century ownership inscriptions to title, two leaf biography of L'Obel tipped in before the title page; later manuscript Latin plant names added throughout (except in the instance of mushrooms and non-plant specimens like goose barnacles and dentrite fossils), forty page manuscript index after text associating page numbers in L'Obel with an alphabetical table of Linnean Latin plant names; with sales receipt from 1940 tipped in at back; cancel woodcut pasted in place on page 69 [E3 recto]; a large copy with many deckle edges, some staining, toning, a few ink spills, generally good, 8 3/4 x 7 in.

Nissen 1220; Hunt 138.

It is possible that the added manuscript material, including hand-written Latin plant names, index, and perhaps even the author's biography are all the work of Jean-Louis Marie Poiret (1755-1834), French naturalist, botanist, and traveler who catalogued the plants of the Barbary Coast during a mid-18th century visit. Poiret was a professor and published author. Notes of his birth and death appear in manuscript on the title and inside the front board, and the index is titled, "Tabula iconum Lobeliis cum nominibus Linneanis, autore J.L.M. Poiret." Hunt calls L'Obel's work "most useful," this copy rendered more so by the addition of Linnean terms.