Les chênes de l'Europe et de l'Orient, descriptions et figures de toutes les espèces, suivies de considérations sur leur culture dans l'Europe centrale, accompagnées de 40 planches chromolithographiées

Paris: J. Rothschild, Libraire de la Société Botanique de France et des Sociétés Zoologique et Géologique de Londres, 14 Rue de Buci. Printed by E. Donnaud at 9 Rue Cassette, 1864. Folio. (23 x 15 1/2 inches). 40 chromolithographic plates. Unpaginated, 248 pp. Contemporary Morocco-backed mottled boards, spine with raised bands in six gilt-tooled compartments, marbled endpapers.

A rare and gorgeously illustrated folio portraying 40 different species of Karl Kotschy's especial passion: oak trees. OCLC finds but one copy.

Karl Georg Theodor Kotschy was a botanist and explorer who was born in Austrian Silesia in what is today Poland. He was the son of Protestant theologian Carl Friedrich Kotschy (1789-1856), who was also a botanist. Kotschy the younger initially studied theology, like his father, before being asked to join the Austrian mining engineer Joseph von Russeger's geological expedition for the Egyptian government through the Middle East and North Africa over the course of 1836-1838. This expedition spurred further travels which lasted through 1862, including to Cyprus, Ethiopia, Syria, Kurdistan, Palestine, and Turkey, during which Kotschy collected over 300,000 plant specimens. On these travels he learned the Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Greek languages. In 1847, Kotschy started working at the Imperial Cabinet of Curiosities in Vienna, where he eventually became curator. The Kotschya genus of legumes, the lizard Cyrtopodion kotschyi, an orchid called Ophrys kotschyi, and the Crocus kotschyanus, are all named in Kotschy's honor. Kotschy wrote six botanical books between 1843 and 1867. This work describes forty species of European and Asian oak trees, a passion of Kotschy's, some of which were then new to science. Each of the forty species of oak has its own two page description, in both French and German, accompanied by a chromolithograph of the plant as it would appear in nature, and black and white illustrations of various aspects of the oak. Kotschy gives descriptions of each plant, its local usage and vernacular names, and indicates how it could perform in Western cultivation. The plates are by Carl Horegschj, a famous illustrator of the time in Vienna.

Catalogue of the Collection of Books (1873), 190. Catalogue of the Library of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University (1917), 246. Stafleu TL2 3890.