Philosophia botanica, in qua explicantur fundamenta botanica. - [""HIS MOST INFLUENTIAL WORK""]

Stockholm, G. Kiesewetter, 1751. 8vo. In contemporary half calf. Extremities with wear. Boards with scratches with loss of the marbled paper. Capitals chipped and leather on spine cracked. Ex-libris pasted on to pasted down front end-paper. Occassional browning throughout. (6), 362 pp. + frontispiece and 11 plates. The portrait (frontispiece), present here, was only added to a few copies. Complete copies with portrait and all 11 plates are uncommon.

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First edition of this first textbook of descriptive systematic botany and botanical Latin. It also contains Linnaeus's first published description of his binomial nomenclature. ‘Philosophia Botanica marks a developmental stage in Linnaeus's botanical philosophy, expanding upon concepts initially presented in his ‘Fundamenta Botanica’ (1736) and ‘Critica Botanica’ (1737). The book also establishes a basic botanical terminology. “Continuing his study on the classification of plants, Linnaeus published [the present work]. In this he attempted to organize a natural system based on structure, but this work was never completed” (Sparrow 135) “Linnaeus’ main mission was to complete his reform of botany. In the work produced during his stay in Holland he had established the principles, maintained more or less unchanged for the rest of his life, but they still had to be developed and put into practice. In 1751 he published Philosophies botanica, his most influential work but actually only an expanded version of Fundamenta botanica. In it Linnaeus dealt with the theory of botany, the laws and rules that the botanist must follow in order to describe and name the plants correctly and to combine them into higher systematic categories. At the same time he struggled with the enormous undertaking of cataloging all of the world’s plant and animal species and giving each its correct place in the system.” (DSB) Sparrow 135 Soulsby 437 Hulth p. 78.