THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN 



211 



this was formally transferred to them by Dr. Engelmann, together 

 with the library of his father, which, however, had actually been placed 

 at the garden and in part arranged before the death of Mr. Shaw. One 

 of Dr. Engelmann 's biographers expressed the great surprise occasioned 

 by the vast amount of work that he, a busy physician, had found time 

 to do. The number and minute accuracy of his unpublished notes, 

 which form part of this gift from his son, were even more surprising. 

 Over 20,000 of them exist, varying in character from a mere memo- 

 randum of the appearance of a plant which he had observed in a foreign 

 garden, or a simple bibliographic reference, to accurate detail sketches 

 of all of the specimens on which his conception of a species in a 

 difficult group rested ; and the 

 sixty thick volumes in which 

 they are now contained are 

 counted among the choicest 

 possessions of the institution. 

 It was but a few years after 

 the organization of the garden 

 under its present management 

 that the Director one morning 

 received a letter from the late 

 Dr. E. Lewis Sturtevant, a 

 correspondent for many years, 

 but one whom he never had 

 the privilege of meeting per- 

 sonally, asking if the garden 

 would accept a large collection 

 of specimens, reference cards, 

 sketches, partly in water- 

 colors, and other material 



illustrative of the genus Capsicum, with a view to its ultimate utiliza- 

 tion in the preparation of an illustrated monograph such as the donor 

 had for years had in contemplation for his own pen, but which he 

 then saw that he must place in other hands. The gift was accepted, 

 and the resulting publication, which has been referred to above, is 

 now a matter of history and, I am pleased to say, met with Dr. Sturte- 

 vant 's approval. Some years later, stricken with mortal illness, Dr. 

 Sturtevant once more wrote to ask if the garden would accept as a gift 

 the large and important collection of pre-Linnean books that it had 

 been his pleasure to accumulate through the years of his active study 

 of the origin and modifications of the plants cultivated by man, adding 

 that he wished to attach no conditions to the gift if it would be accept- 



E. Lewis Sturtevant. 



