Changing Botany in North America: 1835-1860 The Role of George Engelmann

Abstract

lthough the history of a subject or of a time Torrey, the oldest of the three, earned his living should treat the parts played both by the "great" by teaching chemistry â€"at West Point, at Princeor by the well-knownâ€" and by lesser figures, it ton, and at the College of Physicians and Suris generally true that there are some few persons geons in New York. Although Torrey had close who stand out amongst the others and who give ties with many correspondents in Europe, he was, definition to the subject and time.par excellence, a botanist for North America. He Even the most cursory look at botany in North was from the 1820s involved with preparing the America during the nineteenth century shows pre-botanical reports for government-sponsored exeminent the triumvirateâ€" Asa Gray, John Tor-peditions and until after the Civil War plants rey, and George Engelmann. There were other from such expeditions went to Torrey, who had outstanding botanists at the middle of the cen-the overall responsibility for them. He prepared, turyâ€" one might mention W. S. Sullivant and for example, the final report on the botanical Edward Tuckerman â€" but it was Gray, Torrey, collections made by the Boundary Commission, and Engelmann who had the greatest effect upon which operated after the Mexican War. Torrey their adopted field. Their combined careers as was much less concerned than were Gray and botanistscover nearly seventy years. During this Engelmann in direct dealings with the private time, botany in North America developed from collectors active during the 1840s, but for many the simple collecting of plants and amassing of years it was he who would have the most direct data with consequent assignment of genera and connection with any official in Washington who species into Linnaean pigeonholes, into some-might be helpful to botany. thing like modern botany.Gray I see as the organizer among the three. I think, too, that examination of events in any From his arrival at Harvard in 1842, he was at field of science cannot be usefully done unless the center of botanical activities in the United seen against the background of contemporary po-States and he came to have the greatest breadth litical, social, and intellectual realities. It can be of interests. His first trip abroad in 1838-1839 done neither for the present nor for what might allowed him to make contacts and to open chanseem to have been a simpler and less complicated nels of communication that made Gray the intime. In any case, developments in botany in the ternationalist among American scientistsâ€" cer-United States during the middle of the nine-tainly among botanists. For thirty years Gray teenth century were pulled along by the political provided a one-man abstracting serviceâ€" preevents, and I have chosen to consider this time senting in the American Journal of Science and by looking at the relationship of botany to ex-Arts, ''Silliman's Journal," information about ploration in the American west and at the part botanical work in Europeâ€" news and reviews and played b...

Vitis, Wine, and Medicine: The Other Careers of George Engelmann (1809–1884)

“…The men also bought several acres at Eighth and Chouteau Streets and planted a botanical garden for experiments with various plants and trees. By the 1850s, possibly earlier, Engelmann grew his own private garden, and he signaled in various ways that he now thought of himself as fully American (Shaw, 1986). By 1856, he writes proudly about a Vitis labrusca L. he was growing "at my house on 5 th Street," and in 1874, he waxes about his own prolific "Concord vines" (a cultivar of V. labrusca) (G. Engelmann, 1874a).…”

Typification of Four North American Club-Chollas:the Names of Four Engelmannian Species from Mexico and Southwestern United States

“…Engelmann had a solid scientific background in the plant sciences (Engelmann 1986;Shaw 1986;Soulè 1970), and many of the plant materials used for his descriptions are preserved today as voucher specimens at MO. Some duplicates lodged at NY-Torrey Herbarium, were,probably sent by Engelmann to Torrey as the overall coordinator of botany of the Boundary Commission (Shaw 1986). Particularly good descriptions of these species were published in "Cactaceae of the Boundary" and exceptional illustrations produced by Paulus Roetter were also printed in the same report (Engelmann 1859).…”