GEORGE ENGELMANN 159 



an intelligent secretary, for the collected notes 

 were all found and filled sixty file books in the 

 Missouri Botanical Museum after his death. 



" His method of working was to take a single 

 group of plants and work it over systematically, 

 so far as was in his power. His treatment of the 

 genus cuscuta " increased the number of species 

 from one to fourteen, without going west of the 

 Mississippi Valley. Seventeen years later .... 

 he published a systematic arrangement, giving 

 twenty-seven species, besides varieties." 

 . After several excursions he decided to settle 

 in St. Louis, then a town of only 10,000 inhabi- 

 tants. It required some courage; for he was not 

 rich, and even had to sell his guns and pistols to 

 help pay the rent. Fortunately, St. Louis was a 

 growing city, and it was soon discovered there 

 was no one more skillful in ushering young citi- 

 zens into the world than Dr. Engelmann; he was 

 the first there to use the obstetric forceps, though 

 the local accouchers were strongly against the 

 innovation. 



Four years of patient, hard work in St. Louis 

 permitted a visit home to " the happy father- 

 land ' to marry Dora Horstman. She had been 

 waiting ten years and was ready to travel to far- 

 away Missouri with her husband, who, with a 

 somewhat heavy practice in town, a love of bot- 



1 A genus of parasitic plants of the convolvulus family. 

 13 



