i6o SOME AMERICAN MEDICAL BOTANISTS 



any drawing him to the country, and a strong 

 scientific bent, especially towards meteorology, 

 could not have had much time for the young 

 wife; yet, when she died in 1879, his friend, Dr. 

 Boisliniere says: " Engelmann was inconsol- 

 able and in spite of attempted consolation by his 

 friends, of whom I had the honor to be one, and 

 occasional visits to the Rocky Mountains and 

 Colorado, he gradually succumbed to the inten- 

 sity of his sorrow.'' 



During the latter part of his life he travelled 

 over the mountains of North Carolina and Ten- 

 nessee, the Lake Superior region and the Colo- 

 rado plains to study in situ the Cacti, Coniferae 

 and other groups. The year of his wife's death 

 he made a long journey through the Pacific States 

 to see, in full dress and beauty, many plants hith- 

 erto known as half-clothed exiles, or viewed lying 

 stiff and stark in an herbarium. He published in 

 America his masterpiece, The Monography of 

 North American Guscutinae. This was repub- 

 lished by botanical periodicals in England and 

 Germany ; also in America, in 1 842, by the Amer- 

 ican Journal of Science. His descriptions of the 

 Cactaceae of the Pacific Railroad Survey fol- 

 lowed; and several years later came his most 

 renowned work on the Cactaceae of the bound- 

 ary, which forms a highly interesting portion of 

 Emory's Report of the United States and Mexi- 

 can Boundary Survey, 1858. He went over to 



