KENT, Adolphus H[enry]. Veitch's Manual of the Coniferae.

With Bad-Tempered Botanical Nit-Picking

KENT, Adolphus H[enry]. Veitch's Manual of the Coniferae. London: James Veitch & Sons, Ltd. 1900.

8vo. Original brown cloth, borders stamped in black, gilt pinecone vignettes to boards, spine lettered in gilt; pp. 562, [1], lithographic illustrations throughout; a few scuffs to boards, spine ends lightly bumped; internally clean and bright; a very good copy; 1910 ownership inscription of W.V. Legge at Cullenswood House to front free endpaper verso and title verso.

Second edition of this comprehensive review of cone-bearing plants cultivated in Britain, this copy with a type-written letter on conifers from the Tasmanian Department of Agriculture to W.V. Legge, author of History of the Birds of Ceylon (1878–1880).

Started by John Veitch in the early nineteenth century, Veitch’s grew to be one of largest family-run nurseries in Europe with premises in Exeter, Chelsea, and Kingston. As well as being a thriving business it was an important source of specimens for scientific purposes through its global network of collectors. By 1914 it had introduced 1281 plants into cultivation. Forty-nine of those plants were conifers, and to bolster the company’s reputation they employed the specialist Adolphus Henry Kent (1828–1913) to produce the present work.

Provenance: verso of title-page with ownership inscription of Colonel W.V. Legge (1841–1918), the Australian soldier and ornithologist most famous for his magisterial History of the Birds of Ceylon (1878–1880), with a loosely inserted letter. While commanding the forces in Tasmania in 1911, he published a ‘Report on the Tasmanian cypress pine; its range, economic value and conservation’ for the state Parliament. The research for his paper may well provide the background to the present letter. Written to Legge from the Department of Agriculture in Tasmania, it is in response to what was clearly a rather terse previous exchange on the precise taxonomy of the Douglas Fir: ‘In deference to the tenor of your marginal note on the Douglas Fir … Douglas fir is scientifically neither a fir nor a spruce …’

SKU: 2114680