JOHANN CHRISTIAN BUXBAUM: PLANTARUM MINUS COGNITARUM CENTURIA COMPLETENS PLANTAS CIRCA BYZANTIUM ET IN ORIENTE OBSERVATAS. PETROPOLI (SAINT PETERSBOURG) TYPOGRAPHIA ACADEMIAE 1728-1729 First Edition, Small FOLIO,contemporary full vellum slightly soiled,text and plates clean and bright,complete in three volumes with all the relevant text and the one hundred eighty eight (188), full page or folded, fine copper plates, all published during authors lifetime,two additional parts appeared more than ten years later, overall in very good condition,an impressive very richly illustrated work, a very nice copy The German botanist Buxbaum (1693-1730) was invited to Russia by Peter the Great. In 1724, he was appointed to accompany the Russian ambassador, Count Alexander Rumyantsev, to Constantinople His primary mission was to collect and document the flora of the Levant, particularly around the city ( Byzantium) region, as well as the Balkans, the Greek Islands, and the Caucasus. He travelled extensively around Thrace,Asia Minor and Greece. It provides some of the earliest scientific descriptions of plants from the area. One of his most famous discoveries is the genus Buxbaumia, named in his honor, which he found during his travels. The three volumes are filled with 188 copper engravings depicting fine plants of Greece and the Levant which created the first scientific corpus of flaura of Greece.. These plates are reknown for their scientific accuracy and their distinct 18th-century aesthetic.Printed by the famous Saint Petersbourg Academy, in Latin, as most of the Russian scientific publications of the time it is one of the very few Russian accounts for the Levant published during the 18th century and among the very first.