The Genus Rosa.

2 vol., folio: xvi-xxvii-243, [4]-247/551-[1] pp.; 129 pl. (with tissue guards, some quires loosening).

Three-quarter shagreen (some min. def.), cloth on covers, spines with 5 raised bands (faded, joints def., spines cracked), marbled endpapers, top edge gilt.

First and only edition of one of the finest 20th-c. colour-printed flower books on roses, by the renowned gardener Ellen Willmott (1858-1934). Ill. with 129 (of 132) chromolithographic plates (63, 66) after watercolours by Alfred Parsons; contains also ca. 80 b/w plates, some included, some not in the pagination. Ellen Willmott was an English horticulturist and influential member of the Royal Horticultural Society and recipient of the first Victoria Medal of Honour. Willmott's inherited wealth allowed her to buy large gardens in France and Italy and to maintain the garden at her home, Warley Place in Essex. The Genus Rosa contains portraits of species roses only, no hybrids or varieties, and is therefore a very valuable reference book on botany. Parsons who himself was a gardener, horticulturist and garden designer, created the most beautiful rose paintings resulting in splendid and vivid chromolithographs.
Ref. Nissen (BBI) 2166. - Stafleu & Cowan VII:17875.
Prov. Francis Hugo Lindley Meynell (bookpl.).