CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY NO. 16 



Arizona, twenty miles to the west and on Cottonwood Creek, north of there, 

 he found a cactus which Engelmann named Echinocactus Sileri. Appar- 

 ently but one specimen of it is extant and that a dried plant in the herbarium 

 of the Missouri Botanic Garden, got apparently at the spring. It was a 

 query to Engelmann what it really was, and he never published it, but Brit- 

 ton and Rose had the temerity to do so and they made a new genus of it and 

 called it Utahia, because ;: ;ot in Utah. Their Latin was 



poor, for the Romans would have called it Utavia. I have made two visits 

 to Tipe Spring to get this plant btu never saw it. Siler had a large family 

 and one of his girls married one of the local boys. This fellow turned out to 

 be a scamp, and once made a remark about his wife that threw discredit on 

 her. So one of Siler's sons took it up and promptly shot his brother-in-law. 

 This resulted in his being sent to the penitentiary at Salt Lake City. His 

 father appealed to me to try to get him out. So I put the facts before the 

 Governor and the young man was released. However the incident left bad 

 blood between the f , h --. a ul tin illy the father of the man whom he shot 

 killed him. 'I his >, u -h and r. ils >\^ of - 'ding feuds gets results if noth- 

 ing else. It is not to be assumed from this that the Mormons were dangerous 

 people, for I trav< 1. d am >n ; them t >r m ui\ vears without ever having any 

 trouble. 



J. E. Johnson, a mu< I < ollected many 



plants and discovered a number of new species. His headquarters were St. 

 George, where he had a drug store. He. also was a Mormon and a polyga- 

 mist. I never n I still alive when I was in St. George 



first. 



Another of tho ■ i rh ! ot mists was John Reading, who kept a green- 

 house in Salt Lake City for many years. He was a ver\ fint gentl m , 

 whom I knew for many years. He got a Sedum which was named after 

 Meehan. He also was a Mormon and a polygamist. 



Sereno Watson. My acquaintance with Watson was the same as that 

 of Gray, and it is likely that my characterization of him will be defective, 

 but I had a better chance to learn of his capacity than any contemporary 

 botanist for the reason that I worked over the same field. We know little 

 about his early trainiin,' < \< ej)t tthat he wa- a college graduate. In the sixties 

 he was a tutor in Iowa (now Grinnell) college and was given the degree of 

 Master of Arts by that college. The next we hear about him is when he 

 walked barefoot into the camp of the U. S. geological survey and applied 

 for the job of botanic to the expedition. This was the survey of the fortieth 

 parallel under Clarence King, and the camp was in western Nevada. W. W. 

 Bailey was the botanist of the expedition and was incapacitated by ill health, 

 Watson coming in at the critical time, and without any recommendations, to 

 replace him. Once in the early years -omeone asked Torrey where Watson 



