﻿PLANTAE LINDHEIMERIANAE. 131 



After the army was disbanded, Lindheimer seems* to have 

 come north to St. Louis and spent the summer of 1839 and 

 probably the following winter here, but the climate was too 

 severe for his lungs and again he took up his residence in the 

 new repubUc of Texas. He located near Houston and 

 engaged in truck-farmmg (1840-1843), but the land proved 

 poor and the business unprofitable, so, urged by his friend, 

 Dr. George Engelmann of St. Louis, he decided to give up 

 this work and devote himself to that of collecting the 

 largely unknown flora of Texas and depend upon the sale of 

 his specimens for a living. 



He had always been fond of botany and devoted much time 

 to his favorite study while in the university with Engelmann 

 and other botanists. He collected largely on his trip to 

 Mexico and continued his botanical work even during the 

 excitement of the Texas revolution, as many specimens in 

 the Engelmann herbarium will attest, so that now, when in 

 doubt as to his vocation in life, he naturally turned to that 

 which he liked best, as long as it should afford him a means 

 of livelihood. Moreover, the region in which he was situated 

 was largely unknown botanically, only a few collectorsf having 

 previously visited it and the results of their work not having 

 been published. The scattering collections already sent to 

 Engelmann showed clearly the need of a scientific investiga- 

 tion of the plants of this borderland between the American 

 and Mexican floras, and he urged Dr. Gray, who was then just 

 establishing the Botanical Garden at Cambridge, to join with 

 him and Lindheimer in the exploitation of this unique flora. 

 Accordingly advertisements were inserted in several botanical 

 journals, and in the spring of 1843 Lindheimer began collect- 

 ing plants in quantity for distribution. 



The first year he was not very successful, owing to various 

 misfortunes, and a part of the collection of 1844 was lost in 

 transmission, but the collections of 1843 and 1844, containing 

 318 numbers, were distributed as planned and their descrip- 



* A number of specimens in the Engelmann iierbarium are labeled 

 "St. Louis. 1839. Lindheimer," while similarly we find he was at San 

 Felipe, Texas in March and New Orleans in April of that year on his way up. 



t Berlandier, Drummond, Riddell and Leavenworth. 



