Flore - Lot 482

Flore PHILIPPE (Xavier) Flora of the Pyrenees. Bagnères de Bigorre, Plassot, 1859. 2 volumes in-8: 3f., 606pp. / 2f., 505pp. ½ brown basane, gilt titles, palettes and tomaisons on lightened smooth spines, a bump on a cut, corners dulled. Rare. The Société Ramond published a "Ornithologie Pyrénéenne" by this author in 1873. PHILIPPE had settled in Bagnères in 1830, where he founded an ornithological practice. Then, climbing ever higher into the mountains, he turned to botany and later mineralogy, building up collections for both his museum and his business. He became a correspondent of the Bordeaux Linnaean Society. "Cruel infirmities, contracted in numerous encampments in high valleys, did not stop this indomitable researcher". He died in 1866. Apart from what SOUTRAS said in the obituary published in the first year of the Bulletin de la Société Ramond (p. 81-82), nothing is known of this self-taught scientist (Labarère 1184).