Botany.- Curtis (William) Flora Londinensis; or, plates and descriptions of such plants as grow wild in the environs of London, vol.1-5 (only, of 6) bound in 3, first edition, 360 hand-coloured engraved plates, title to vol.1 only, engraved author portrait mounted on front free endpaper of vol.1, 6pp. manuscript "alphabetical index to the first five (out of six) fasciculae of Curtis's Flora Londinensis" in vol.1, final text leaf supplied in manuscript, light browning, light scattered spotting affecting some plates, nineteenth-century green half morocco by Birdsall, spine with raised bands in seven compartments, slightly rubbed, t.e.g., others uncut, folio, printed for and sold by the author, 1777.*** William Curtis (1746-1799) set out to record all the wild plants growing within a 10-mile radius of London. Many of the substantial collection of hand-coloured plates show the details of the plant at each stage of its growth and development, rather than a snapshot at one particular stage.