Camerarius, J. (the younger). Hortus Medicus et Philosophicus: in quo plurimarum stirpium breves descriptiones, novae icones non paucae, indicationes locorum natalium, observationes de cultura earum peculiares... Item, Sylva Hercynia: sive catalogus plantarum sponte nascentium in montibus & locis plerisque Hercyniae Sylvae quae respicit Saxoniam, conscriptus singulari studio a Joanne Thalio. Frankurt, (colophon:) Johann Feyerabend, 1588. 3 parts in one volume. 4to (192 x 149mm), pp. (xvi), 184; 133, (3, including blank); (64, including terminal blank), with printer's device on three titles and colophon by Jost Amman and a suite of 56 large woodcuts; small stain on lower margin of preliminary leaves, a few other gatherings with faint waterstains, occasional light browning, a very nice copy in early Italian pasteboards, slightly worn, the Robert de Belder copy.

First edition of this important catalogue of plants in the garden of the Nuremberg physician and botanist Camerarius, accompanied by Johann Thal's flora of the Harz region and a suite of woodcuts by Jost Amman, Joachim Jungermann and other artists. This is the first catalogue of plants in a German garden, and Camerarius' garden was the most important of its time in southern Germany for the introduction of new exotics, including many near-Eastern plants provided by Clusius via Vienna. It was the precursor of the Eichstätt garden celebrated in Besler's 'Hortus Eystettensis', 1613. The catalogue consists of an alphabetical list of plants, with notes on synonymies, provenance, cultivation, etc. Camerarius was provided with plants by a number of botanists besides Clusius. These included Prosperio Alpini, noted for his botanical explorations of Egypt and later the keeper of the Padua botanic garden, Ulisse Aldrovandi, founder of the Bologna botanic garden, the Lyons botanist Jacques Dalechamps, Joost Goedenhuyze (who Italicised his name to Giuseppe Casabona), keeper of the botanic garden in Florence and botanist to Francesco de Medici, and Jacopo Antonio Cortusi, director of the botanic garden at Padua and botanical explorer of the Greek islands and the Near East. For a detailed history of Camerarius' garden and Clusius' role in its formation see (Raphael and Watson) The Camerarius Florilegium, Christie's, 20 May 1992. Many of the illustrations are derived from the unpublished manuscript 'Historia plantarum' of Conrad Gesner, which Camerarius owned. Adams C446; Burdet, Catalogue des ouvrages prélinnéens de la Bibliothèque du Conservatoire botanique de Genève, 83; Hunt 156; Nissen BBI, 311.