Flora Cestrica. An Herborizing Companion for the Young Botanists of Chester County, State of Pennsylvania ... Third Edition.

Philadelphia, Lindsay & Blakiston, 1853. 8vo. Contemporary brown half-morocco over marbled boards with raised bands, spine lettered in gilt; pp. c, 498; steel-engraved portrait-frontispiece, hand-coloured lithographic geological map; wear to extremities, foxing to text; inscribed by the author ('of her old oft obliged friend') on dedication page to Miss Elizabeth C. Morris; later ownership inscriptions to paste-down and front fly-leaf. Presentation copy of the third, revised edition. A fascinating compendium of the indigenous and introduced plants of the county, their medical properties, use, medicinal and culinary, and distribution. Darlington was a medical doctor and ship's surgeon, who wrote a couple of works on American medical botany. In 1826 Darlington had set up a natural history society in West Chester, and the Californian pitcher plant, Darlingtonia californica, was named in his honor in 1853. Only this presentation copy contains the engraved miniature portrait of the author (which is otherwise unknown); in all other copies consulted the map takes the place of frontispiece and is the only illustration. Darlington must have commissioned this miniature portrait for presentation purposes. Pritzel 2048 (not mentioning the portrait).