Lot 49: HOOKER, William Jackson and Walter FITCH (1817-1892). Victoria Regia; or, illustrations of the Royal Water-Lily, in a series of figures chiefly made from specimens flowering at Syon and at Kew. London: Reeve and Benham, 1851.

Broadsheets (746 x 539 mm). 11 leaves letterpress: title, dedication, pp. [5]-20, [21]. 4 HAND-COLORED LITHOGRAPHIC PLATES after Fitch by Reeve, the fourth plate (Analyses) partly colored (some slight cockling). (Few marginal repairs to text leaves.) Modern half morocco, blue boards, preserving original morocco cover label. Provenance : George W. Smith (bookplate presenting the volume in 1852 to); Massachusetts Horticultural Society (bookplate). FIRST EDITION. This gigantic water-lily of Central and South American was first reported to have been seen by European naturalists in 1801. It was not until 1837 that a specimen was taken by Sir Robert Schomburgk in British Guiana and named for Queen Victoria in the first year of her reign. The "vegetable wonder" captured the imagination of the Victorians by its immense size--leaves up to six feet in diameter--and by its startling growth rate and the strength of its leaves. There are 3 large folio monographs on this rare plant, the first Lindley's Victoria Regia (London, 1837), containing one plate, and limited to 25 copies. Fourteen years later Hooker collaborated with Fitch to produce the present work, including four plates, and recorded the first flowering of the plant in 1849, at Chatsworth, under the careful supervision of Joseph Paxton. The third was an American monograph, John Fisk Allen's Victoria regia, with six plates by William Sharp, published in Boston in 1854. The last copy of the present work to appear at auction was sold at Christie's New York, 8 June 1990, lot 292. Great Flower Books, p.60; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 3014 (noting 20 pages letterpress, and not noting the final leaf "References to the Plates").