BLACKSTONE, John. Fasciculus Plantarum circa Harefield sponte nascentium. London: Henry Woodfall. 1737.
Small 8vo bound in 6s. Contemporary full mottled calf, gilt fillets to sides, spine with raised bands, morocco gilt lettering piece, label to foot, marbled endapers; pp. viii, 118, engraved head- and tail-pieces; with in inscription "found here below stairs" to flyleaf, very good.
First edition. Scarce. John Blackstone (1713-1753) was a London apothecary with strong family links to Harefield, and this work was " the first flora of Harefield…The work contained the description of 523 plants, now considered to represent the majority of the plants growing in that area at the time, and has since been compared with recent data and used to analyse local extinctions. At this time Blackstone had also been commissioned to collect plants for the Apothecaries's Garden in Chelsea and for the Oxford Physic Garden, as well as maintaining correspondence with Sir Hans Sloane, a friend of his grandfather's." (Natural History Musuem, https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.person.bm000363777). The book is dedicated to Sloane.
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