Paulus Roetter—Pencil sketches (1852-1880) 
Biographical sketch 
Paulus Roetter, landscape artist and botanical illustrator, was born on July 4, 1806, in 
Nuremberg, Germany. He studied art in Dusseldorf and Munich before settling in 
Switzerland in 1825. In 1845, he immigrated to St. Louis where he became an Evangelical 
pastor and school teacher. Shortly after his arrival in St. Louis, Roetter became associated 
with George Engelmann, a physician and botanist who was the chief scientific advisor to 
Henry Shaw on the development of the Missouri Botanical Garden. Roetter created 
botanical sketches for Engelmann’s reports on cactus and pines and made detailed 
drawings of specimens found on government expeditions and surveys conducted west of 
the Mississippi River. In recognition of his fine work, Engelmann named a new species of 
Cactus, C. Roetteri, and wrote, “I take great pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to 
the modest and faithful artist, Mr. Paulus Roetter who has adorned this memoir by his 
skillful pencil, by naming this species after him” (Cactaceae of the Boundary, pg. 33).In 
1867, Roetter moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to work with biologist Louis Agassiz at 
Harvard University and was the botanical drawing instructor at Agassiz’s Anderson School 
of Natural History on Penikese Island. Roetter returned to St. Louis in 1884 and died on 
November 11, 1894. 
Scope and Content Notes 
This collection consists primarily of preliminary pencil sketches for lithographs which later 
appeared in the following three publications by George Engelmann: Cactaceae of the 
Boundary, v. 2, pt.1 of Report on the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, under 
the order of Lieut. Col. W. H. Emory, 1859; Report on the botany of the expedition. No. 3 
Description of the Cactaceae, v. IV of Explorations and surveys for a railroad from the 
Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Route near the thirty-fifth parallel, explored by 
Lieutenant A.W. Whipple, 1856; and Revision of the Genus Pinus and Description of Pinus 
Elliottii, v.4, no.1 of Transactions of the Academy of Science of St. Louis, February 1880. 
The sketches were purchased from Roetter’s daughter, Mrs. S. Mueller, in 1895. 
According to William Trelease’s Seventh Annual Report in 1896, the sketches were valued 
at $100.00. (Seventh Annual Report of the Director, Wm. Trelease, Missouri Botanical 
Garden Annual Report, 1896). They were subsequently placed in a bound book of blank 
pages and stored with Engelmann’s manuscripts. The sketches were later removed for 
preservation purposes, and in 2011 were placed in individual Mylar sleeves. 
The 122 items in this box are organized into the following series: Folder 1 Mammillaria; 2 
Echinocactus; 3 Cereus; 4 Opuntia; 5 Miscellaneous cactus; 6 Lotus flowers and 
unidentified plants; 7 Pinus elliottii. 
Lynne Casey, March 2011 
