ROYER, Thomas   CATALOGUE DES PLANTES DU JARDIN.   Du Sr. Royer, Marchand Épicier-Droguiste, rue du Fauxbourg S. Martin, à Paris, suivant leurs genres & les caracteres des fleurs, conformément à la méthode de M. de Tournefort, dans son Édition Françoise de 1694.    Paris: D. C. Couturier,   1776.          Third, enlarged edition. The extensive annotated catalogue of a large commercial botanic garden operated in Paris during the decades before the French revolution. Thomas Royer was a druggist who maintained a shop and botanic garden on the rue due Faubourg-Saint-Martin. This garden, with over 700 varieties, rivaled the older and more famous garden of the Parisian Apothicaires run by Jean Descemet. In 1760 Royer began to offer courses in botany and medicine which included as part of the tuition the opportunity to gather herbs and other plants in his garden. He also sold general access to other herborists who wanted to collect plants there. The catalogue offered here was written chiefly to assist his students and visitors in gathering the herbs and medicinal plants available in his garden. Its 707 entries are arranged according to Tournefort, while the individual plants are identified with Linnean binomials accompanied by descriptive annotations in Latin. Each entry also identifies the plant's primary medicinal properties. Several separate indexes appear at the end of the volume. The largest of these groups plants by medicinal properities, of which 42 categories and sub-catagories are defined. Another index is compiled according to genera and synomnyms, followed by a final index for French common names. The volume begins with an introduction to botany according to the system of Tournefort as well as a similar guide to Linnean classification. The very rare first edition of Royer's catalogue, published in 1760, includes only 11 pages. A second edition with 200 pages appeared in 1765. The present edition is the last and most complete. Rare; OCLC locates only one copy in North America (Hunt Botanical).   8vo (19.6 x 12.5 cm); xvi + 256 pp. + 2 engraved plates.   Pritzel 7847.          Early quarter calf with marbled boards; small section at corners of first three leaves torn away, without loss; leaf A8 detached. $1,350.00

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