AUTHOR: Blair, Patric (d. 1728) TITLE: Botanic essays. In two parts. The first containing, the structure of the flowers, and the fructification of plants, with their various distributions into method: and the second, the generation of plants, with their sexes and manner of impregnating the seed: also concerning the animalcula in semine masculino. Together with the nourishment of plants, and circulation of the sap in all seasons, analogous to that of the blood in animals. With many curious remarks, and several discoveries and improvements. Adorn’d with figures ... by Patrick Blair. IMPRINT: London, printed by W. and J. Innys, 1720. COLLATION: 18 p.l., 414 p.: fold. front., fold. plates; 20 cm. NOTES: “Blair took his medical degree at Aberdeen and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1712. ‘His outstanding work, however, is his Botanick essays which, according to the preface, originated in some discourses the author communicated to the Royal Society on “the different sexes of plants”... Pulteney considered that the publication of Botanick essays, in which Blair expounded the then new view as to the sexual character of plants, contributed greatly to the extension of the knowledge and the confirmation of the truth of this matter in England... As well as discussing the question of sex in plants, Blair dealt in his book with the structure of plants, the methods of classification, the nourishment of plants, and the circulation of sap.’ (Henry, II, pp. 48-49 & no. 456 in the bibliography)” — Jonathan A Hill, catalogue 132 REFERENCES: Morton, History of Botanical Science, pp. 240 & 243; Pritzel 816 (calling for 4 plates only) KEYWORDS: 1. Botany. LOCATION: QK41.B63 1720 OTHER CALIFORNIA LOCATIONS: UC Davis; UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library