ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) – The Missouri Botanical Garden announced Friday that Dorothy “Deecy” Stephens Gray donated a rare book to the MoBOT’s Peter H. Raven library.
Gray, who is a St. Louis native, donated a first edition of The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands etc. 1731-1743, written by Mark Catesby. There are fewer than 100 first editions of this book in collections that are known of.
The book was “the first known illustrated natural history of any part of North America,” according to MoBOT. It features flora and fauna that were found in the 18th century in the southeastern U.S. and the Caribbean.
The MoBOT President and Director, Lúcia Lohmann, expressed gratitude for the donation and emphasized how meaningful it was to MoBOT and to those interested in the natural world…