GEORGE ENGELMANN. 443 



the thermometrical part of these observations for forty-seven 

 years. He apologizes for not waiting the completion of the 

 half-century before summing up the results, and shows that 

 these could not after three more years be appreciably dif- 

 ferent. 



A list of Dr. Engelmann's botanical papers and notes, col- 

 lected by his friend and associate, Professor Sargent, and 

 published in Coulter's " Botanical Gazette " for May, 1884, 

 contains about one hundred entries, and is certainly not 

 quite complete. His earliest publication, his inaugural thesis 

 already mentioned (De Antholysi Prodromus), is a treatise 

 upon teratology in its relations to morphology. It is a re- 

 markable production for the time and for a mere medical 

 student with botanical predilections. There is an interesting 

 recent analysis of it in "Nature" for April 24, by Dr. Mas- 

 ters, the leading teratologist of our day, who compares it with 

 Moquin-Tandon's more elaborate " Teratologic Vegetale," 

 published ten years afterwards, and who declares that, "when 

 we compare the two works from a philosophical point of view, 

 and consider that the one was a mere college essay, while the 

 other was the work of a professed botanist, we must admit 

 that Engelmann's treatise, so far as it goes, affords evidence 

 of deeper insight into the nature and causes of the deviations 

 from the ordinary conformation of plants than does that of 

 Moquin." 



Transferred to the valley of the Mississippi and surrounded 

 by plants most of which still needed critical examination, Dr. 

 Engelmann's avocation in botany and his mode of work were 

 marked out for him. Nothing escaped his attention ; he drew 

 with facility ; and he methodically secured his observations 

 by notes and sketches, available for his own after-use and for 

 that of his correspondents. But the lasting impression which 

 he has made upon North American bofany is due to his wise 

 habit of studying his subjects in their systematic relations, 

 and of devoting himself to a particular genus or group of 

 plants (generally the more difficult) until he had elucidated 

 it as completely as lay within his power. In this way all his 

 work was made to tell effectively. 



