Very rare first and only edition of an illustrated description of 13 Jamaican plants (13 illustrated with 1 plate each, but only the first 9 described) by the Swedish botanist Olof Peter Swartz (1760-1818), who had drawn some 200 plants during his travels through the West Indies. 71 of these drawings were destroyed in WWII. J.F. Volkart made 13 engravings after some of these drawings for the present publication (all showing Jamaican plants): in the present copy they are delicately hand-coloured with a subtle gradiation of tones. It was intended as part of the first fascicule of a much larger publication that would have contained engravings after all of Swartzs drawings, but the rest still remains unpublished today. Swartz studied under Carl Linnaeus the younger and graduated with a doctoral thesis in 1781. From 1784 to 1786 he traveled via North America to Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Haiti and Cuba and made a special study of the flora of parts of Jamaica that western botanists had not yet visited.
Spine slightly discoloured, corners a bit bumped. Minor foxing on the text leaves. Otherwise in very good condition. Hunt 735; Linnaeus and the Linnaeans, p. 155; Nissen BBI 1917; Stafleu & Cowan 13529.