Plantæ Lindheimerianæ. Part III . By J. W. Blankinship . (From the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 1907. Pp. 100.)

One of the earliest and most widely known botanical collectors in Texas was Ferdinand Jacob Lindheimer. He settled at Houston, Texas, in 1840, and engaged in truck farming. As a farmer, he was not successful and on the advice of his friend, Dr. George Engelmann, of St. Louis, he gave up farming and turned his entire attention to collecting the unknown flora of Texas and selling his specimens as a means of livelihood. In 1844, Lindheimer moved to New Braunfels, where he lived until his death. By the aid of Dr. Engelmann and Dr. Asa Gray, who identified his specimens, Lindheimer was able to devote his entire time to collecting. As a result of his work, four sets or fascicles of plants, bearing numbers from 1 to 754, were collected and Parts I and II, Plantæ Lindheimerianæ, describing a part of these plants, were published by Drs. Engelmann and Gray. The first fascicle, collected in 1844, contained 214 numbers; the second comprised 215 to 318 and was collected in 1844; the third contained numbers 319 to 574 and was the 1845 and 1846 collection; the fourth consisted of numbers 575 to 754 and was made in 1847. A collection made in 1849-1851 was probably intended for a fifth fascicle. It contained about 650 numbers and was about as large as the other fascicles combined. This collection is quite valuable in that it contains a number of cotypes of species, described from the other exsiccateæ. There were about fifty sets of plants, thirty of which were fairly complete, prepared from this collection for distribution. About a year ago one of these sets was presented by the Missouri Botanical Garden to the University of Texas.

The herbarium of Dr. George Engelmann, after his death, was presented to the Missouri Botanical Garden by his son, Dr. George J. Engelmann. It contained a large number of duplicates, a great many of which were Lindheimer's Texas plants and were at first supposed to be the undistributed portion of the exsiccateæ described in Plantæ Lindheimerianæ, Parts I and II. Later it was found that they were the undistribute collection which was made in 1849-1851. This collection was carefully studied by Mr. J. W. Blankinship. In the eighteenth annual report of the Missouri Botanical Garden, issued November 25, 1907, he gives a report of his work which is here under review.

The publication, Plantæ Lindheimerianæ, as begun by Engelmann and Gray, was left incomplete at the end of the Compositæ (Bentham and Hooker sequence), so that no data for numbers 449-574, Fascicle III, and 652-754, Fascicle IV, have been given. This, with a list of the species in the last Lindheimer collection and the missing numbers of Parts I and II of Plantæ Lindheimerianæ are supplied in Blankinship's report. The author also gives a brief but interesting account of the life of Lindheimer and a general bibliography of Texas Botany.

Plantæ Lindheimerianæ is not only valuable from an historical standpoint, but will be of great importance to botanists interested in the flora of Texas.

HARLAN H. YORK .

How to cite:
"Plantæ Lindheimerianæ. Part III", Volume 012, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 159 - 160. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v012/n2/review_22.html
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