The Book of Palms by Phillip von Martius - Taschen (larger)

After an epic Amazonian journey through Brazil and Peru, German botanist von Martius compiled an unsurpassed catalogue of all known genera of palm. This exquisite encyclopedic treasury is a jewel of 19th-century botany, as remarkable for its meticulous classification, as it is for its maps, color landscapes, and cross-sectioned diagrams showing the architecture of these majestic trees.