{Reprinted from THE Poputar Science MoNnTHLY, March, 1909.] 
A BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF BOTANY AT ST. LOUIS, 
MISSOURI. IV 
By Dr. PERLEY SPAULDING 
LABORATORY OF FOREST PATHOLOGY, BUREAU OF PIANT INDUSTRY, 
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
Ss of the best known of the botanical collectors of this country who 
worked shortly after the middle of the last century was August 
Fendler. He, like numerous others, came to America from Germany 
in the late thirties. From 1864 to 1871 he lived at Allenton, Mis- 
souri, about thirty miles from St. Louis. While living at Allenton 
Fendler arranged the first botanical specimens in the herbarium which 
was just being started by Henry Shaw for his Botanical Garden. 
These numbered about 60,000 and consisted of the herbaria of Bern- 
hardi and Riehl, the latter containing a considerable number of local 
species. Because of his extensive and excellent collections, he became 
known to botanists and botanical institutions. While he was widely 
known by reputation, he seems not to have been well known personally, 
because of his excessive diffidence. 
August Fendler? was born August 10, 1813, in the town of Gum- 
binnen, in eastern Prussia. When he was six months old his father 
died, and two years later his mother married again. His parents had 
but scanty means and his school training for a number of years could 
scarcely be called schooling. When about twelve years old he was sent 
to the Gymnasium, and was here for about four years, when his parents 
were obliged to take him from school because of financial troubles. He 
was apprenticed to the town clerk’s office, and here began to think of 
traveling in foreign countries. 
At the end of his apprenticeship he had an offer to accompany a 
prominent physician as his clerk in a journey of inspection along the 
Russian frontier of Prussia where the cholera was beginning to be 
feared. Fendler was soon in the midst of the cholera and remained for 
some time, returning home when the disease had abated. He now 
learned the trade of tanning and currying during the next two years. 
In the fall of 1834 Fendler was admitted to the Royal Gewerbeschule, 
but the strain upon his already frail health caused him to abandon it 
after finishing the first year with credit. 
* Canby, W. M., Bot. Gaz., 9: 111-112, 1884; 10: 285-200, 301-304, 319- 
322, 1885. 
Gray, Asa, Amer. Jour. Sci. and Arts, 3d series, 29: 169-171, 1885. 
Sargent, C. S., “Silva of North America,” 12: 123-124, 1898.. 
