GARIDEL (Pierre-Joseph de). Histoire des plantes qui naissent aux environs d'Aix, et dans plusieurs endroits de la Provence. Aix : Joseph David, 1715 [1718]. - In-folio, 356 x 238: frontispiece, (1 f.), xxxiv, xlvij, 524 pp. misquoted 522, (13 ff.), 100 plates. Brown calf, spine ribbed and decorated, speckled edges (period binding). First edition of this sought-after work by physician and botanist Pierre-Joseph de Garidel (1658-1737), a disciple and close friend of Tournefort, who named a genus of buttercup plant Garidella. This work, written for purely medical purposes, brings together several hundred plants from the Aix region and the Alpes de Haute-Provence. Presented in chronological order, some are described for the first time. A lengthy article is devoted to truffles, and in particular to how to find them, with the help of a sow or by the presence of midges. Dedicated to the procurators of the Provence region, the work was printed with great luxury in Aix, in folio format, at the expense of these procurators and the States of Provence, making it one of the monuments of the typographical art of this region. Although dated 1715, it actually appeared in 1718, advertised in Le Journal des sçavans of Monday September 5, 1718; the privilege is dated December 9, 1716. The illustration consists of a frontispiece signed A. Bouisson, an entablature bearing the arms of the Counts of Provence, a handsome historiated lettering and 100 plates engraved by H. Blanc. These plates are numbered from 1 to 117, but there are no plates 16, 24, 26, 31, 41, 45, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 86, 88, 92, 93, 107 and 115, and plate 82 is numbered 2. The edition is thus very complete. Hinges cracked, spine leather partly split, head cap missing, rubbed and worn, corners dulled. Some foxing. Light spotting on the bottom of the first plates and on plate 114.