The Riddle of the Tsangpo Gorges.

London: Edward Arnold & Co.,, 1926. First edition, first impression, of this account of an expedition to south-eastern Tibet in 1924-25 by "the last of the great plant hunters" (Lyte). The author (1885-1958) set out for Tibet's Yarlung Zangbo Valley in the company of John Duncan Vaughan Campbell, the fifth Earl Cawdor (1900-1970), with the pair proceeding via Darjeeling, Sikkim, Phari, and Gyantse. Following the course of the river further than the Bailey-Morshead expedition of 1913, Kingdon-Ward and Campbell encounter cataracts and several waterfalls including the 21-metre "rainbow fall". As Troelstra notes, for Kingdon-Ward "the botanical harvest is substantial; especially many rhododendrons are discovered. Another important plan introduction from this journey is the blue poppy Meconopsis baileyi". Kingdon-Ward was one of the most important botanist-explorers of the first half of the 20th century. After participating in the zoological Bedford expedition, he began working for the prominent nursery Bees of Chester in 1911, journeying to China the same year in search of botanical rarities. In the following decades, he undertook many other expeditions to Asia, often in uncharted regions, and developed a "sure eye for flowers of garden potential" (ODNB). In these inhospitable climes, he overcame a multitude of adversities including "arthritis, bouts of deep depression, porters who were surly or drunk or absconded, the loss of his spectacles, [and] impalement on a bamboo spike (in 1937)" (ibid.). Kingdon-Ward was awarded the Founder's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society (1930) and numerous botanical honours. Octavo. With half-tone frontispiece showing "the wooded cliffs of the Gorge", 15 similar plates, folding map. Original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt, front cover lettered in blueish grey, edges untrimmed. Housed in custom card slipcase with adhesive illustrations and lettering. Recent bookseller's ticket on rear pastedown, mid-century commercial bookplate on half-title. Cloth fresh with a little rubbing, small chips at foot of first blank, couple of leaves with adhesive browning, plates lightly toned, map with stub tear not crossing neatline, repaired somewhat crudely with adhesive tape on verso: a very good copy. Troelstra, pp. 238-245. Charles Lyte, Frank Kingdon-Ward: The Last of the Great Plant Hunters, 1989.