Beschreibung:

Odoardo Beccari (1843-1920) Asiatic Palms - Lepidocaryeae. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press (vols.I & II) or Bengal Secretariat Book Depot (vol.III), 1908-1921. 3 volumes in 6 (including 3 volumes of plates), large 4° (360 x 288mm.) or 2° (548 x 363mm). 5 series titles ?only (of 6), 5 volume titles ?only (of 6). 475 plates (including 453 phototype plates printed in Florence after photographs by Beccari and 22 uncoloured lithographs by K.P. Dass, A.N. Banerjee and others after Beccari or G. Anichini), text unopened. (Without titles and preliminaries to first atlas volume, occasional small marginal tears or light marginal soiling.) Unbound as issued in original cloth-backed portfolios (5 volumes) or wrappers (final volume of plates), titled on upper covers (some soiling to portfolios, wrappers torn with loss). RARE AT AUCTION: this monograph by the renowned Italian botanical explorer and Palm specialist, was issued under the auspices of the Royal Botanic Garden Calcutta, and was published as volumes XI and XII of thier Annals . The author explains in the preface to the first volume the circumstances which led to the publication of the work: "A monograph of the genera Calamus and Daemonorops was prepared by me many years ago, as part of a general work on "Asiatic Palms" which it had been my intention to publish in my "Malesia." The "Instituto di Studi Superiori" of Florence having, however, withdrawn its subsidy towards the continuation of the work.. my studies of the Asiatic Palms were interrupted... The present monograph would probably never have seen the light had it not been my good fortune, in 1899, to meet in Florence Sir George King, who... offered to arrange for the publication of the work in the "Annals of the Royal Botanic Garden of Calcutta," of which publication he had been the founder." A posthumous companion work, titled Asiatic Palms - Corypheae , was published in 1931 as vol.XIII of the Annals . BM (NH) VI,p.69; Nissen BBI 112. (6)