GEORGE ENGELMANN 



1 809- 1 884 



Engelmannia pinnatifida — TORREY 



The sponsorial claimant of Engelmannia is 

 first seen at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, the eldest of 

 thirteen children (his birthday February 2, 

 1809), ^nd in student days at Heidelberg Uni- 

 versity particularly happy because Agassiz, Karl 

 Schimper' and Alexander Braun' were also 

 there. The next glimpse shows him graduating 

 as a doctor at Wiirzburg and reading a thesis 

 on De Antholysi Prodromus, in good Latin, 

 treating of morphological monstrosities in plants 

 and their metamorphoses. Goethe noticed and 

 approved it and oflfered to place his own notes 

 and sketches in his hands, but death intervened 

 and carried oflf the poet. " This essay," says Dr. 

 Boisliniere,' " was soon followed by a mono- 

 graph, also in Latin, on the habits of a little 

 creeper he had found on a hazel bush, and it 

 delighted scientists on account of the minute- 

 ness and perfection of the observations. He 

 always investigated systematically and accepted 

 in science nothing for granted until it had passed 



'Karl F. Schimper, botanist, 1803-1867. 

 ° Alexander Braun, botanist, 1805-1877. 

 ' St. Louis Med. & Sur. Jour., 1893. 



157 



