A magisterial six-volume work, heavily indebted to Robert Brown, and bringing plant catalogues into the modern scientific era. Hundreds of Australian plants are included, the vast majority now with carefully argued notes and great lists of references.

A magisterial six-volume work, heavily indebted to Robert Brown, and bringing plant catalogues into the modern scientific era. Hundreds of Australian plants are included, the vast majority now with carefully argued notes and great lists of references.

Carl Sigismund Kunth (1788-1850) was a German botanist who worked closely with Alexander von Humboldt on plants from North and South America; this work is in fact dedicated to Humboldt. Kunth worked with both Humboldt and Bonpland in Paris from 1813-1819, before returning to become Professor of Botany at Berlin University in 1820, where he also became attached to the Botanical Garden. His collection became part of the Royal Herbarium in Berlin after his death.

Where copies are seen at all, it is more common to see individual volmes of this work: each volume deals with a distinct set of species, and could be purchased individually by specialists. As a result, this set has the title-pages for the series ("Enumeratio plantarum") and also includes each of the separate title-pages, as follows:

Agrostographia synoptica sive enumeratio graminearum (1833) & Supplementum… exhibens descriptiones specierum novarum et minus cognitarum… (1835);

Cyperographia synoptica sive enumeratio cyperacearum… (1837); a volume which particularly follows the work of Robert Brown and T.F.L. Nees von Esenbeck;

Enumeratio Aroidearum, Typhinearum, Pandanearum… (1841);

Enumeratio Xyridearum, Mayacearum, Commelynearum… (1843);

Enumeratio Asparaginearum, Smilacinearum, Lapageriearum… (1850).