[SWAN RIVER COLONY] Appendix to the first twenty-three volumes of Edwards’s Botanical Register :

consisting of a complete alphabetical and systematical index of names, synonymes, and matter, adjusted to the present state of systematical botany; together with A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony. With nine coloured plates, containing eighteen coloured figures of plants, and with four wood-cuts. London : James Ridgway, Piccadilly, 1839. First edition, first issue. Two works bound in one volume, octavo (245 x 160 mm); contemporary half calf over marbled papered boards, spine with raised bands and green morocco title piece lettered in gilt; front pastedown with the nineteenth-century armorial bookplate of Sir William H. Cooper; Appendix to the first twenty-three volumes of Edwards’s Botanical Register pp. iv, lxiv, with four woodcut illustrations in the text; A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony (caption title) pp. [i]-lviii, [1 Eplanation of the plates], followed by 9 hand-coloured engraved plates; light foxing to the outermost leaves, a fine copy.

The second work in this volume is the rare first edition of the first substantial account of the botany of Western Australia, containing detailed information about the known flora of the south-west corner of Western Australia – a region with a botanically significant ecosystem.

John Lindley FRS (1799-1865) was Professor of Botany at the University of London; he compiled this botanical record of Western Australia using a herbarium of 1000 species which was made available to him for research. His opening remarks in his Sketch give context to the project:

“The frequent arrival of seeds from this Colony, the excellent state in which they are received, and the facility with which further supplies can be procured, appear to render some Botanical account of this remarkable country a desirable appendage to a work which, like the Botanical Register, forms an original record of new plants introduced, or worthy of introduction, to our Gardens…”.

The Sketch is appended to Lindley’s own index to the first twenty-three volumes of Edwards’s Botanical Register.

Ferguson, 2791 (the second work). Note: In 1840 a second issue of A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony was issued under its own title by Ridgway.

Australian institutional holdings: SLWA; Murdoch University; WA Department of Biodiversity; NLA; SLNSW; University of Adelaide; Botanic Gardens of Adelaide and State Herbarium