Fine copy of this important work by one of the great botanical explorers and naturalists of the nineteenth century, the Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari (1843-1920) who spent time in Kew Botanical Gardens in early 1865 to study the natural history collectons in preparation of his forthcoming expedition to Borneo (Malaysia). Here he met Charles Darwin, William Joseph Hooker and James Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak. The latter lead him to spending 3 years from 1865 to 1868 undertaking research in Sarawak, Brunei and other islands off present-day Malaysia and New Guinea, where he discovered many new species of palms, and many other plants such as a phosphorescent fungus that was bright enough to read a newspaper placed by it. His pioneering explorations in the Malaysian Archipelago were grounbreaking. During this period, he collected many thousands of botanical, zoological and ethno-anthropological specimens which are now conserved in natural history museums. Based on this conserved material, hundreds of species new to science have been described. In the work he reflects on nature, the local Dyaks and their customs in some detail and he describes his return to Sarawak some 20 years later, where he formed a botanical garden. He discovered the titan arum, the plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world, in Sumatra in 1878. This edition also contains the valuable and detailed appendix on the forests of Borneo, which are currently being logged to extinction. Contains an index.