A rare, attractive and lovely Japanese nursery catalogue produced for the export market, illustrated by 40 magnificent chromolithographed plates showing 40 different Japanese lilies in every colour imaginable, available from the Yokohama Nursery Company (Yokohama Ueki Kabushiki Kaisha), a consortium founded in 1890 by Uhei Suzuki and three other nurserymen in Yokohama as a pioneer in modern horticulture in Japan. The plates generally give the genus and species names with a reference (Lindly, Thunberg, Hooker, Regel, Ker/Gawler, etc.) and the name of the variant shown (often depending on the colour).
The first edition under the present title, in 1899, also with 36 plates, uses the present wrapper illustration and many of the present plates. The present second edition under this title (1907) expanded it to 40 plates and the third (1922) apparently to 44 plates. Four of the printed numbered names in the present copy have been covered by correction slips, perhaps updating the information in the 1899 plates.
The forty numbered plates were separately printed and all but the first and last pasted back to back to make leaves with a chromolithographed lily on each side. Back wrapper detached, some damage and small tears at the edges of front wrapper, tear in p. [3] (not affecting plate 1 pasted to its verso) which is a bit soiled. Overall in good condition. Kew Gardens on-line cat. (1899 & 1907 eds. but only 36 plates); WorldCat 850929769 (no location, 42 plates, "[1907]") & 937059208 (1 undated copy with 40 plates, possibly the present ed. lacking title-page). cf. archive.org/details/CAT31127584/page/n5/mode/2up (1899 ed.); www.biodiversitylibrary.org (same copy of 1899 ed.).