Wild Flower Guide: Northeastern and Midland United States.
New York: Doubleday & Company, 1948. Hardcover. 12mo. Light blue cloth with gilt lettering and decoration, pictorial dust jacket. xv, 202pp. Map frontispiece, line drawings, numerous full-color plates. Very good/very good. Small inoffensive stain at front pastedown and front flyleaf top edge of otherwise near fine volume; jacket edgeworn and rubbed, with spine lightly sunned -- as if used in the field. Item #44586
A tight, nice first edition of this useful field guide -- and this copy bears a choice and unusual autograph addition: Title page bears a bold ownership signature in black ink of Charles Frederick Menninger (1862-1953) -- "CF Menninger MD / Spring of 1948" -- famed Topeka, Kansas physician who founded a clinic with his two better-known sons, Karl (1893-1990) and William (1899-1966). The Menninger Clinic became world-renowned for its treatment of behavioral disorders. Outside of medicine and psychiatry, Menninger is known for one ardent passion: Horticulture, which makes his ownership of this volume interesting and relevant. Inside rear flyleaf also bears a boldly pencilled list in his hand titled "Rock Garden Plants" listing sixteen plant species. A most intriguing copy bearing a fairly scarce signature of this distinguished horticulturist and holograph notes -- far scarcer than that of the sons with whom he founded the noted Menninger Clinic.
Price: $175.00