George Engelmann

George Engelmann

George Engelmann, aka Georg Engelmann, (2 February 1809 – 4 February 1884) was a German-born, American physician and botanist, known for his pioneering research in the Rocky Mountains and northern Mexico. In 1863 he became a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Quotes

• The only Cactus known to Linnæus from the countries north of Mexico was his Cactus Opuntia (Opuntia vulgaris). Long after him, more than forty years ago, Nuttall, the pioneer of West American botany, discovered two Mamillariæ and two Opuntia on the upper Missouri, and again, twenty years later, in California, a new Echinocactus.
  • Synopsis of the Cactaceae of the territory of the United States and adjacent regions. 14. Metcalf & Company, printer to Harvard University. 1856. p. 3.  (59 pages; offprint from the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. III; Charles R. Metcalf was active in publishing during the 1840s and 1850s and was the younger brother of Eliab W. Metcalf, who died in 1835.)

• The species of our Junipers, are, on the whole, well enough recognized, but their scientific definition is very insufficient—the characters, given in the books, vague and indefinite.
  I have had a good opportunity to study the different species and forms from all parts of our country, fresh and living as well preserved in numerous collections; among them those contained in the great Herbaria of New York and Cambridge (Torrey and Gray) and those of Kew (Hooker), and especially those of Berlin, whence the types of the different Mexican species were sent to me by my late excellent friend, Alexander Braun.
  With the exception of Junipera Sabina, which with us is always a prostrate plant, all our species occur both in the form of low shrubs or of trees, a few of them of magnificent dimensions. In the arid mountain regions, the trunks of the different species which occur there frequently assume peculiar conical forms, very thick at base and rapidly tapering to a slender point.
  • (1877) . "The American junipers of the section Sabina". Transactions of the Academy o Science of St. Louis III (4): 583–592. (quote from p. 583; offprint by R.P. Studley, printers)

Quotes about George Engelmann

• Dr. Engelmann received his medical education and early scientific training at Berlin, Heidelberg and Frankfurt. Agassiz, Alexander Braun, and Charles Schimper were among his college-associates and lifelong friends. He left Germany almost at once after his graduation, reaching New York in 1832. His first visit was to Philadelphia, where he was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of Nuttall and other scientific men. ...
  ... From 1835 until his death Dr. Engelmann continued to live in St. Louis and to devote to scientific investigations every moment which could be spared from a large and absorbing professional practice.
  • (April 1884) "George Engelmann (obituary)". Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club XI (4): 38–42. (quote from pp. 38–39; reprint of obituary appearing in the journal Science)

External links

• Encyclopedic article on George Engelmann on Wikipedia