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Dr. George Engelmann: The First Man of Cacti and a Complete Scientist

1970; Missouri Botanical Garden; Volume: 57; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/2395105

2162-4372

Oscar H. Soule,

Plant and animal studies

George Engelmann was a premier botanist in the early history of the Western United States for the half century he collected and encouraged others to collect in the region. His influence can be seen clearly through his contribution to the taxonomy of the Cactaceae where his more than 108 descriptions comprise over two-thirds of the forms recognized today. George Engelmann was born February 2, 1809 in Frankfort-on-the-Main and died just into his seventy-sixth year in Saint Louis on February 4, 1884. His early life has been chronicled in biographies by Sargent (1884), Gray (1887), Lawton (1968), and Beidleman (1970). By his own admission the botanical interests of Engelmann surfaced during his teenage years (Lawton, 1968) and were enhanced with his early training in Germany. The culmination of this interest appeared with his first major publication, De Antholysi Prodromus (Engelmann, 1832). This inaugural dissertation completed his degree of Doctor of Medicine at Wiirzburg in the summer of 1831. It was a morphological work based chiefly on the study of plant monstrosities and featured illustrations by the author. The care and detail shown in this early work did not go unnoticed and were a good indication of the direction and caliber of Engelmann's later work. In 1832, Engelmann left Europe and his colleagues, including Louis Agassiz, Alexander Braun and Karl Schimper, for the United States. After landing in New York, he traveled to Philadelphia where he became acquainted with members of the scientific community. Engelmann journeyed farther west seeking a home in the reasonably unexplored region of the Mississippi Valley. Thus he arrived at Saint Louis in 1833 after a short stay in Illinois. Saint Louis was then 'I would like to express my appreciation to the late Dr. Edgar S. Anderson, who implanted the seed that developed into this paper. The discussions with him were stimulating to me as they have been for so many others. Acknowledgement is also given to Mrs. Carla Lange of the Missouri Botanical Garden Library for her assistance in compiling and willingness to share in the growing field of Engelmannia. 2Missouri Botanical Garden, 2315 Tower Grove Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri 63110. ANN. MISSOURI BOT. GARD. 57: 135-144. 1970. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.162 on Thu, 11 Aug 2016 05:36:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms