246 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



prevented the fulfillment of these and many other plans for the advance- 

 ment of natural science. 



Prof. Riley was married in 1878 to Miss Emelie Conzelman, the 

 daughter of a prominent and wealthy citizen of St. Louis, who with 

 six lovely children mourn his distressing and untimely death. He had 

 invested quite largely in real estate in Washington and had built a 

 number of houses. His first home was on 13th and K streets, a very 

 unique and pretty house embowered in wisterias and climbing roses 

 and with a little garden at the side that was crowded, not only with 

 the loveliest flowers, but with souvenir plants and trees from England 

 and the various haunts of his boyhood on the continent. 



In 1890 he purchased a considerable tract of land on Washington 

 heights, upon which he erected an almost palatial mansion, and sur- 

 rounded it with fruit and flower gardens in which it was his delight to 

 work mornings and evenings, cultivating his roses, pruning and train- 

 ing his vines and trees with such success that "Sunbury" was one of 

 the noted "beauty spots" of the city. 



Among his difficult horticultural achievements was the successful 

 introduction of several English oaks, first planted in his ground on 

 J 3th street, and afterward when they were quite large trees, removed 

 a distance of two or three miles to "Sunbury" without any apparent 

 check to their growth. 



Another of his hobbies was the growing of hardy orchids, of which; 

 he had, at the time of the writer's last visit, a very interesting collec- 

 tion. 



Nature was especially generous to Prof. Riley, endowing him with 

 a tall and graceful form, a face and head with striking beauty and great 

 agility and strength, in addition to his rare mental gifts. The admira- 

 ble traits in his character were his high ambitions, his inflaging indus- 

 try, his perseverance and invincible determination to succeed in any 

 enterprise in which he embarked. His strength of will enabled him 

 to resist all temptations to pleasures that might in any way unfit him 

 for the work to which he was devoted. His enthusiasm in his favorite 

 science was so great that his associates could not fail to catch his 

 spirit, and though he was very exacting and critical, his assistants 

 always enjoyed his just appreciation of original discovery or other 

 meritorious work. His death, in the prime of life, is felt by all wha 

 knew and honored him as a profound personal loss, and to his family 

 who idolized him, it is an overwhelming affliction. 



As many of the horticulturists of the State had for years been his 

 friends and correspondents, as all had been benefited by his investigar- 



