F. Leuba - Les Champignons Comestibles et les Espèces Vénéneuses avec lesquelles ils pourraient être confondus - 1890

LEUBA 'F.), Edible Mushrooms and the Poisonous Species with which they could be Confounded, Described and Painted from Nature by F. Leuba, Pharmacist.

Neuchâtel, Delachaux et Niestlé, publishers, 1890, in-folio (35.5 x 26 cm), xli (preface) - 118 pp. -1 f. (table of contents), half red morocco with corners (some wear and epidermures and slight discoloration at the top of the first cover), smooth spine (small 8 cm crack at the bottom of the first hinge without gravity, binding solid), boards and corners edged by a double thick and thin gold fillet, gilt-edged edges. (Binding of the period).

Fine copy of the second edition of the reference work by Fritz Leuba on mycology. The work is well complete: half-title, title page, first part (XLI pages of text on culture and culinary and medical uses), second part (117 pages of text on the classification and description of species) and 54 plates including 52 chromolithographs drawn by Fritz Leuba and lithographed by H. Furrer, of Neuchâtel. Fritz Leuba (1848-1910) was a Swiss pharmacist, botanist and artist. A skilled horologist like his parents, he was forced to change careers after a hunting accident that injured his hand. He became an apothecary at Corcelles and a member of the Neuchâtel Society of Natural Sciences. A specialist in mushrooms, he first published at his own expense Les Champignons in 1890, at the price of 24 Swiss francs — a considerable sum for the time. Ownership stamp of the Swiss pharmacist Choppard de Couvet at the top of the title of the second part. Cf. Kelly p. 127; Nissen BBI 1183