SKETCH OF GEORGE ENGELMANN, M. D. 263 



In 1849 Dr. Engelmann published, in the "Memoranda of the 

 American Academy of Arts and Sciences," the " Plantae Fendlerianae," 

 thereby, says his biographer in the St. Louis " Universe," " drawing 

 from obscurity another German-American botanist, August Fendler." 

 Fendier and he had become acquainted on a governmental expedition 

 to the Rocky Mountains, to which the former was attached as engi- 

 neer. He was afterward engaged for two years, upon Engelmann's 

 recommendation, in classifying and arranging the Henry Shaw col- 

 lections of plants. He traveled in the Rocky Mountains, California, 

 Mexico, Central America, and Brazil, and died in the Island of Trini- 

 dad in 1882. His name, the " Universe " adds, can not be forgotten 

 in the history of the American flora. A number of plants are named 

 after him, among them one of the handsomest cactuses, the Cereus 

 Fendleri. 



Dr. Engelmann's work upon the cactus family is styled by Dr. Gray, 

 in the " American Journal of Science," most extensive and important, 

 as well as particularly difficult, and his authority the highest. " He 

 essentially for the first time established the arrangement of these 

 plants upon floral and carpological characters." This work was begun 

 in the report of the Doniphan expedition, and was continued, by his 

 account in the " American Journal of Science," in 1852, of the giant 

 cactus of the Gila ( Cereus giganteus) and an allied species ; " by his 

 synopsis of the Cactacece of the United States, published in the 

 * Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,' 1856 ; 

 and by his two illustrated memoirs upon the Southern and Western 

 species, one contributed to the fourth volume of the series of * Pacific 

 Railroad Expedition Reports,' the other to Emory's ' Report on the 

 Mexican Boundary Survey.' He had made large preparations for a 

 greatly needed revision of at least the North American Cactacece. 

 But although his collections and sketches will be indispensable to the 

 future monographer, very much knowledge of this difficult group of 

 plants is lost by his death. Upon two other peculiarly American 

 groups of plants, very difficult of elucidation in herbarium specimens, 

 Yucca and Agave, Dr. Engelmann may be said to have brought his 

 work up to the time. Nothing of importance is yet to be added to 

 what he modestly styles ' Notes on the Genus Yucca? published in the 

 third volume of the * Transactions of the St. Louis Academy,' 1873, 

 and not much to ' Notes on Agave ' illustrated by photographs, in- 

 cluded in the same volume and published in 1875." 



Other special works mentioned by Dr. Gray are those on Jitncus, 

 in the second volume of the " Transactions of the St. Louis Academy " ; 

 Euphorbia, in the fourth volume of the "Pacific Railroad Reports," and 

 in the " Botany of the Mexican Boundary " ; Sagittaria and its allies ; 

 Isoetes / the North American Eoranthacece / Sparganium / certain 

 groups of Gentiana ; and some other genera. " Of the highest inter- 

 est, and among the best specimens of Dr. Engelmann's botanical work, 



