[NATURAL HISTORY - SPECIMEN ALBUMS]. CURTIS, William and William SALISBURY. Hortus siccus gramineus or, a collection of dried specimens of British grasses. Brompton: Botanic Garden, 1802.

2 volumes, folio. 125 sheets of dried specimens, with manuscript captions in Latin and English, mounted on blue paper; 14 blank sheets with names and a manuscript note at the beginning that these will be supplied when found. (Title-page in vol.1 with horizontal repair.) Contemporary half russia (extremities worn, covers detached); folding boxes. Provenance: Hon. John Amory Lowell (1798-1881), botanical book collector (bookplate); given by him to the Boston Society of Natural History (their stamps and bookplates); Wheldon & Wesley, booksellers (with their code cost on front pastedown).

William Curtis was a demonstrator of plants at the Chelsea Physic Garden, before establishing his own botanical garden for the study of native British plants first at Bermondsey, and latterly at Brompton. His British Grasses, "immensely valuable to farmers" (ODNB), was published posthumously in conjunction with William Salisbury, a fellow nurseryman with whom he had entered into partnership in 1797.

Property from the Estate of Peter Fortsas