George Engelmann
Encyclopedia
George Engelmann, also known as Georg Engelmann, (2 February 1809 – 4 February 1884) was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

-American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 botanist. He was instrumental in describing the flora of the west of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, then very poorly-known; he was particularly active in the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...

 and northern Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

.

Origins

George Engelmann was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, the oldest of thirteen children, nine of whom reached maturity. His father, Julius Bernhardt Engelmann, was a member of a family from which for several successive generations were chosen ministers for the Reformed Church at Bacharach-on-the-Rhine
Bacharach
Bacharach is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Rhein-Nahe, whose seat is in Bingen am Rhein, although that town is not within its bounds....

. Julius was a graduate of the University of Halle, and was also educated for the ministry, but he devoted his life to education. He established a school for young women at Frankfort, such as were then little known. George Engelmann's mother, Julie Antoinette, was the only daughter of Antoinette André and George Oswald May. The latter, in his earlier years, was an artist of note at the Court of Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

. Julie Antoinette was Julius Engelmann's coadjutor in the school for young women, and its success was largely due to her management and tact.

His uncle, Friedrich Theodor, a German pioneer of Illinois, was an early American viticulturist.

Education

George Engelmann received his early education at the gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

. According to himself, he first became interested in plants around age 15. At this age, also, his disposition to study was such that he voluntarily devoted much of his time after the performance of his stated school duties to the study of history, modern languages, and drawing.

Assisted by a scholarship founded by the “Reformed Congregation of Frankfort,” in 1827 he began the study of the sciences in the University of Heidelberg, where he met Karl Schimper and Alexander Braun
Alexander Braun
Alexander Carl Heinrich Braun was a German botanist from Regensburg, Bavaria.He studied botany in Heidelberg, Paris and Munich. In 1833 he began teaching botany at the Polytechnic School of Karlsruhe, staying there until 1846...

. With the latter especially an intimate friendship and correspondence were preserved unbroken until the death of Braun in 1877. With Schimper also he retained friendship, although that penetrating but erratic genius after obtaining a remarkable grasp of philosophical botany and laying the foundations of phyllotaxy abandoned the subject entirely.

In 1828 young Engelmann's studies at Heidelberg were interrupted by his having joined the students in a political demonstration. He thereupon left Heidelberg and entered the University of Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...

, where he stayed for two years. In 1831, he received the degree of M.D. from the University of Würzburg
University of Würzburg
The University of Würzburg is a university in Würzburg, Germany, founded in 1402. The university is a member of the distinguished Coimbra Group.-Name:...

.

His dissertation for the medical degree, more related to botany than to medicine, was published at Frankfort in 1832 under the title of De Antholysi Prodromus. It was devoted to morphology — mainly to the structure of monstrosities and aberrant forms of plants — and was illustrated by five plates of figures drawn and transferred to the lithographic stone by the author's own hand. Its subject was so directly in line with that of a treatise on the metamorphosis of plants by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...

 that it was heartily welcomed by the poet-philosopher, whose own life was then approaching its close. Having received Engelmann's treatise through his correspondent Marianne von Willemer, Goethe inquired after the young author, saying that Engelmann had completely apprehended Goethe's ideas concerning vegetable morphology, and had shown a peculiar genius for their development. So strong was his confidence in Engelmann's ability that he offered to give him his whole store of unpublished notes and sketches.

In 1832 Engelmann went to Paris, where he again became associated with Braun, and also with Louis Agassiz
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...

.

Emigration to United States

Wishing to visit America, he accepted a proposition from his uncles to become their agent for the purchase of lands in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. In September 1832, he sailed from Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...

 for Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to his duties assessing land investment opportunities, he also spent time on botanical travels, first visiting Thomas Nuttall
Thomas Nuttall
Thomas Nuttall was an English botanist and zoologist, who lived and worked in America from 1808 until 1841....

 in Philadelphia. He then went to St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

, and from there around to the adjacent states. He settled with his relatives on a farm in St. Clair County, Illinois
St. Clair County, Illinois
St. Clair County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. In 1970, the U.S. Census Bureau placed the mean center of U.S. population in St. Clair County. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 270,056, which is an increase of 5.5% from 256,082 in 2000. Its county seat is...

 near Belleville
Belleville, Illinois
Belleville is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city has a population of 44,478. It is the eighth-most populated city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area and the most populated city south of Springfield in the state of Illinois. It is the county...

 for three years.

For the purpose of forming a correct judgment of the lands of the new country to which he had come, he made many long, lonesome, and often adventurous horse-back journeys in Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, Missouri, and Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

. He often suffered sickness and hardship upon those journeys, but he persevered until he finished all the business he had planned to do. He made much use of his scientific, as well as practical, knowledge in the prosecution of that business, doing mineralogical and geological work, but only the botanical notes which he then made were used in his subsequent scientific career.

Medical practice

Having completed his business engagement, in the autumn of 1835 Engelmann moved to St. Louis and established a medical practice. During the three years that had passed since he left his native land the slender means he brought with him became exhausted, and he began the practice of his profession in absolute poverty. To furnish an office he was even obliged to part with his gun and with the faithful horse which had carried him on so many long and lonesome journeys. At that time St. Louis was little more than a frontier trading post, but Engelmann had strong faith in its future greatness, and he lived to see it become one of the chief cities of the United States. In 1836 he founded a German newspaper called Das Westland, which contained valuable articles on life and manners in the United States, and gained a high reputation both in the United States and in Europe.

Four years were passed before he had laid the foundation of his medical practice and had earned the means of making a visit to his old German home. In 1840 he returned to Germany, where in Kreuznach he married his cousin Dorothea Horstmann on June 11. (Their son George Julius Engelmann
George Julius Engelmann
George Julius Engelmann was an American obstetrician and gynecologist who was a native of St.Louis. He was the son of botanist Georg Engelmann ....

 became a noted gynecologist.) They soon returned to America. Upon reaching New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, Engelmann for the first time met Asa Gray
Asa Gray
-References:*Asa Gray. Dictionary of American Biography. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928–1936.*Asa Gray. Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.*Asa Gray. Plant Sciences. 4 vols. Macmillan Reference USA, 2001....

, already the most noted of American botanists, and the friendship between those two eminent men thus begun was broken only by death. This friendship is noteworthy because of the evidently beneficial effect which it had upon botanical science in America.

Upon his return to St. Louis with his young wife, Engelmann immediately resumed his medical practice. Then, and long afterward, a large proportion of the inhabitants of St. Louis were of French and German-speaking families, and his familiarity with those languages, as well as with the English, gave him great advantage in extending his practice. Because of this and of his great professional ability, as the years went on he acquired a financial competence that gave him an independence. Never, however, did he take advantage of his success in this respect to lessen his labors, for whenever his medical labors were relaxed his scientific work fully engrossed his attention.

The confidence which he inspired in his medical clientage was such that as he grew older he could take long vacations and resume his practice almost at will. After 1869, he no longer kept a medical office and attended the few patients he saw in his study. Still, it was always difficult for him to refuse medical aid to those who sought it, and even up to the last year of his life there were old friends to whose families he was the only acceptable medical adviser and whose appeal for aid he could not refuse. Illustrating this fact, as well as Engelmann's energetic manner, his son relates the following incident: “It was a bitter, sleety winter night, when the ringing of the doorbell awoke me, and I heard an urgent call for father from the messenger of a patient. I would not arouse him, and proposed to go myself; but he had heard all, and, hurrying into his clothes, was ready to go in spite of my remonstrance 'What of the night?' he said, vexed at my interference, 'Am I already useless, to be cast aside? I would rather die in harness than rust out.' So I helped him down the icy steps, through the blinding sleet, into his carriage, and off on his mission of mercy.”

Botanical studies

Engelmann devoted himself to his medical practice, but in his later years made a specialty of botany.
An 1842 monograph on dodders, a very difficult genus to examine, had established his reputation as a botanist.

He took several vacations from his medical practice and devoted them all to the gathering of data for his scientific work, the details of which were elaborated at his home. One of these vacations extended from 1856 to 1858, the greater part of the first summer having been spent in botanical work at the Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 gardens and herbarium in companionship with Asa Gray. Then, with his wife and young son, he visited his native land and other parts of Europe, occupying his time with scientific observation and study. In 1868 Dr. Engelmann and his wife again visited Europe for a year, the son being then in Berlin pursuing his medical studies. These visits to Europe were also the occasions of frequent and familiar personal interviews with men whose names were well known to the scientific world, such as Joseph Dalton Hooker
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, MD, FRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend...

, Alexander Braun
Alexander Braun
Alexander Carl Heinrich Braun was a German botanist from Regensburg, Bavaria.He studied botany in Heidelberg, Paris and Munich. In 1833 he began teaching botany at the Polytechnic School of Karlsruhe, staying there until 1846...

, De Bary, Virchow
Rudolf Virchow
Rudolph Carl Virchow was a German doctor, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist and politician, known for his advancement of public health...

, and others.

In 1859, he published Cactaceae of the Boundary which studied cacti
Cactus
A cactus is a member of the plant family Cactaceae. Their distinctive appearance is a result of adaptations to conserve water in dry and/or hot environments. In most species, the stem has evolved to become photosynthetic and succulent, while the leaves have evolved into spines...

 on the border of the United States and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

.
He also made special studies of the pine
Pine
Pines are trees in the genus Pinus ,in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species.-Etymology:...

s, rush
Juncaceae
Juncaceae, the rush family, are a monocotyledonous family of flowering plants. There are eight genera and about 400 species. Members of the Juncaceae are slow-growing, rhizomatous, herbaceous plants, and they may superficially resemble grasses. They often grow on infertile soils in a wide range...

es, spurge
Spurge
Euphorbia is a genus of plants belonging to the family Euphorbiaceae. Consisting of 2008 species, Euphorbia is one of the most diverse genera in the plant kingdom, exceeded possibly only by Senecio. Members of the family and genus are sometimes referred to as Spurges...

s, and other little-known and difficult groups, contributing numerous articles on them to the St. Louis Academy of Sciences, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

, and to government reports. Material in his specialties collected by the federal government was sent to him for examination. He was one of the earliest to study the North American vine
Vine
A vine in the narrowest sense is the grapevine , but more generally it can refer to any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent, that is to say climbing, stems or runners...

s, and nearly all that is known scientifically of the American species and forms is due to his investigations. His first monograph on The Grape-Vines
Grapevine
Grapevine is the common name for plants of the genus Vitis. Other meanings include:*Grapevine , a term often used to describe a form of communication by means of gossip or rumor, as in "heard it through the grapevine"...

 of Missouri
was published in 1860, and his latest on this subject shortly before his death. His two major works on cacti
Cacti
-See also:* RRDtool The underlying software upon which Cacti is built* MRTG The original Multi Router Traffic Grapher from which RRDtool was "extracted".* Munin -External links:******...

 remain important today.

He was a founder and longtime president of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences, and encouraged the wealthy St. Louis businessman Henry Shaw
Henry Shaw (botanist)
Henry Shaw was a philanthropist and is best known as the founder of the Missouri Botanical Garden.-Early life:...

 to develop his gardens to be of scientific as well as public use; "Shaw's Gardens" became the Missouri Botanical Garden
Missouri Botanical Garden
The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder Henry Shaw, a botanist and philanthropist.-History:...

. On a visit to England in 1857, he had consulted with William Jackson Hooker
William Jackson Hooker
Sir William Jackson Hooker, FRS was an English systematic botanist and organiser. He held the post of Regius Professor of Botany at Glasgow University, and was the first Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He enjoyed the friendship and support of Sir Joseph Banks for his exploring,...

 on the establishment of Shaw's gardens. He was also one of the original founders of the National Academy of Science.

Phylloxera

In 1861, Engelmann had published a pioneering paper in the United States examining plant diseases. It focussed on the grape. He also established an herbarium for 10 species of grape he had discovered.

He then played an important, but little known role in rescuing the French wine industry. In the 1870's French vineyards came under attack by a small insect, Phylloxera vastatrix. Growers observed that certain imported American vines resisted this pest, and the French government dispatched a scientist to St. Louis to consult with the Missouri state entomologist and with Engelmann, who had studied American grapes since the 1850's. Engelmann verified that certain living American species had resisted Phylloxera for nearly 40 years. In addition, Vitis riparia
Vitis riparia
Vitis riparia Michx, also commonly known as River Bank Grape or Frost Grape, is a native American climbing or trailing vine, widely distributed from Quebec to Texas, and Montana to New England. It is long-lived and capable of reaching into the upper canopy of the tallest trees...

, a wild vine of the Mississippi Valley, did not cross pollinate with less resistant species, the cause of previous grafting failures. Engelmann arranged to have millions of shoots and seeds collected and sent to France, where the species proved to be very successful.

Other fields

While botanical investigations constituted much the greater part of Dr. Engelmann's scientific work, he always had in hand data for other investigations. For example, he began meteorological observations when he first settled at St. Louis, and personally, or by proxy during his absence, he continued them without intermission until his death — a longer period, it is believed, than that of similar observations by any one man in America.

Among the animals he studied were tapeworms (Taenia
Taenia
Taenia can refer to:* Taenia of Doric columnsIn medicine and anatomy* Taenia coli of the large intestine* Taenia thalami of the mammal brain* Taenia of fourth ventricle of the mammal brain...

), the opossum, squirrel
Squirrel
Squirrels belong to a large family of small or medium-sized rodents called the Sciuridae. The family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels, chipmunks, marmots , flying squirrels, and prairie dogs. Squirrels are indigenous to the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa and have been introduced to Australia...

s and mudpuppies (Menobranchus
Necturus
Necturus is a genus of aquatic salamander only found in the eastern United States. They are commonly known as Waterdogs and Mudpuppies...

).

Later explorations

The death of his wife on January 29, 1879, greatly affected him. He turned to plants, seeking relief in study, but life and a continuance of its labors seemed to be almost hopeless. His condition changed but little during the remainder of the winter, but when in the spring C. S. Sargent
Charles Sprague Sargent
Charles Sprague Sargent was an American botanist. He was the first director of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts and the standard botanical author abbreviation Sarg. is applied to plants he described.-Biography:Sargent was the second son of Henrietta and...

 came with the proposition that he should join him in a journey through the forests of the Pacific Coast region he accepted it. That journey, although a difficult one for a man of his age, was of great benefit to him physically. His shattered spirit also was much revived and, among his friends, he resumed and sustained his life-long habit of cheerfulness of manner.

Legacy

He is commemorated in the names of several plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

s, including Engelmann Spruce
Engelmann Spruce
Picea engelmannii is a species of spruce native to western North America, from central British Columbia and southwest Alberta, southwest to northern California and southeast to Arizona and New Mexico; there are also two isolated populations in northern Mexico...

 Picea engelmannii and Apache Pine
Apache Pine
Pinus engelmannii, commonly known as the Apache Pine, is a tree of Northern Mexico, in the Sierra Madre Occidental with its range extending a short distance into the United States in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona...

 Pinus engelmannii.

Engelmann's botanical collection, valuable as containing the original specimens from which many western plants have been named and described, was given to the Missouri Botanical Garden. This gift led to the founding of the Henry Shaw School of Botany as a department of Washington University, St. Louis, where an Engelmann professorship of botany has been established by Shaw in his honor.
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