Plectocomia elongata
Leiden: [Arnz & Co.], 1835–1848. Folio (31½ × 21¾ inches). Lithograph, hand-colored. Matted in cream mat, unframed.
Hand-coloring in green and blue-gray intact and fresh. Horizontal fold to sheet, as issued. Paper clean; very good condition overall.
FIRST EDITION. One of 210 lithographed plates in Blume’s four-volume work on East Indian flora, the majority hand-colored or partly so. Nissen 178; Great Flower Books, p. 50; Stafleu TL2 566.
Plectocomia elongata is a climbing rattan palm native to Southeast Asia, depicted here with its characteristic drooping inflorescences, lanceolate leaves, and marginal botanical dissections. Blume’s Rumphia was conceived as a supplement to his Flora Javae; the title acknowledges his debt to Dutch naturalist Georg Eberhard Rumpf, whose Herbarium Amboinense (1750–1755) had pioneered the study of flora in the East Indies. Plates from the complete work are very scarce; ABPC records only the de Belder copy at auction in the past thirty years.
Item #144203Price: $600.00