L. W. Currey, Inc.

HALL, HARVEY MONROE and CARLOTTA CASE HALL. A Yosemite flora[.] A descriptive account of the ferns and flowering plants, including the trees, of the Yosemite National Park; with simple keys for their identification; designed to be useful throughout the Sierra Nevada mountains by Harvey Monroe Hall[,] Assistant Professor of Botany in the University of California[,] and Carlotta Case Hall[.] Illustrated with eleven plates and one hundred and seventy figures in the text. San Francisco: Paul Elder and Company Publishers, 1912. 18.6x11.5 cm, [i-v] vi-vii [viii] [1] 2-282, 11 inserted plates, 170 figures in text, original flexible suede over thin boards, front and spine panels printed in black. First edition. The pioneer flora for Yosemite National Park, describing 955 species and varieties, not including grasses, sedges and rushes. Harvey Monroe Hall (1874-1932), an Illinois-born botanist who grew up near Riverside, California, was a member of the faculty of the University of California until 1919, when he joined the Carnegie Institution of Washington. In 1928 Carnegie President John Merriam sent Hall to Europe for a year to study national parks. Hall's report proposed the creation of natural reserves in national parks for scientific study. One of the nation’s first designated Research Natural Areas, the Harvey Monroe Hall RNA, an area of about nine square miles on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, about five miles north of Tioga Pass and bordering Yosemite National Park, California, was established in 1933 to ensure the future of pristine ecosystems for scientific research. Formerly Sierra Nevada historian and conservationist Francis P. Farquhar's copy with his name, address and date (June 1912) on the front free endpaper, and his scattered penciled marginalia, mostly dated 1920 and 1921 in the text. Suede refurbished, a very good copy. Enclosed in a custom brown cloth clamshell box with black leather spine label. (#166810).