UNGER, Franz.

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Neu-Holland in Europa. Ein Vortrag, gehalten im Ständehause in Winter des Jahres 1861. First edition of this comparative lecture by a pioneer of paleobotany, arguing for parallels between the living flora of Australia and Eocene fossil plants from Europe. It is distinguished by finely rendered illustrations of fossil leaves printed for Unger by Alois Auer, the leading innovator of nature printing.The Austrian botanist Franz Unger (1800-1870) practised medicine before becoming professor of botany and zoology and director of the botanic garden at Graz (1835-49), then professor of plant anatomy and physiology at Vienna (1850-69). A major pre-Darwinian thinker, he used Humboldtian scientific methods to trace large-scale relationships between environment, species distribution, and geological time, anticipating evolutionary explanation. His wide-ranging teaching and publications - including the landmark Die Urwelt (1851) - influenced figures such as Gregor Mendel.Here Unger proposes a migratory link between Australian and European plants as evidence of Eocene land connection, a claim of priority disputed by Constantin von Ettingshausen. An English translation appeared in the Journal of Botany in 1865 without the original colour illustrations.The plates employ Auer's nature-printing process, which takes direct impressions from natural objects to reproduce texture with exceptional precision. Produced at the Imperial Printing Office in Vienna, the work stands as a notable example of t

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