Explorers showed a lot of interest in
the natural aspects of Texas beginning in the middle 1800s. Its climate, diverse weather and soil plus
the lure of free land attracted these explorers, many of them naturalists. Some
were trained in their field and some had only practical experience in field
work. Many were from Europe and probably
had fortune as a side interest. Some even had an interest in the prospects of a
revolution.
So, this newsletter will switch back
150 years or so and look at the activity of some of these naturalists who
roamed the countryside and studied the natural features of our state.
And perhaps there is no one better to
start with than our so called “Father of Texas Botany” Ferdinand Lindheimer.
Lindheimer occupies a prominent spot in our local history, especially in New Braunfels
where he is featured in this mural just off the square in the town. Appropriately, the mural is right next door
to the oldest bakery in the state.
Lindheimer, was a German born in
Frankfort-on-Main in 1801. His father was a successful merchant and even though
he lost his father early on, the family was able to afford him a very good
education. He attended the university in
Bonn while Germany was undergoing political change and governmental challenges. The goal of the youth in universities and
others was a constitution to unite the German Ducheys into “a new Germany for
the Germans, bound together by the German tongue”.
In 1827 at 26 Lindheimer became a
teacher at the Bunsen Institute in Frankfort.
There he joined other like-minded individuals in agitating for the
reform of the German government. Because of his political activity, Lindheimer
was rejected by his family and he cut off all ties with them. Seven years later he immigrated to the U.S.
as a political émigré.
He was 33 when he landed in New York
and from the city he traveled up the Hudson River to the Erie Canal. From there he traveled down the Ohio River
and up the Mississippi to a German “Latin Farmer Community” settlement in
Belleville, Illinois. There he joined
some of his German friends including George Engelmann. However, the farming life proved boring to
the young intellectuals. According to Lindheimer, “northers were beginning to
blow through…. and the roof of our old log house… was so full of holes that we
could make astronomical observations from our beds….and an irresistible longing
for the south overcame us….for one last time a big drinking bout was held. From the doors taken off their hinges….we
constructed a large table. In the
evening our yard was so full of our guests’ saddled horses that one might have
thought a squadron of cavalry had moved in, and our table was completely
surrounded by happy celebrants.”
While in Mexico, and most important to
us, was his stint working with Otto Friedrich collecting plants and
insects. Collecting plants and insects
was a commercial activity that paid money for specimens to be shipped to
collectors and to museums in the Eastern U.S. In 1915 his collections were published in the book
shown here.
In 1836, the Mexican newspapers were
full of the planned “glorious northern expedition into Texas” to quell the
Texas Revolution. It was then that
Lindheimer, caught up in the idea of freeing Texas, followed his original plan
to go there. It was another ill fated
Gulf voyage. The ship to New Orleans ran
aground and the two lifeboats of the ship capsized, forcing the passengers to
swim to shore. After they …”had lain on
the beach for several days” they were picked up by a steamboat heading for
Mobile. There he enlisted in a company
of Texas volunteers. However the battle
of San Jacinto had taken place a day after he enlisted on April 20, 1836 and
again the hostilities cooled off. Not
much is known about the 19 months he spent before his discharge in Houston at
the age of 36. According to Goyne, the
author of Lindheimer’s letters, he did make a comment at one point that his
commanding officers, considerate of his interest in plants and insects, allowed
him to collect botanical specimens in the countryside while the others in the
outfit were required to drill.
In 1839, Lindheimer, now living in
Houston, was invited to St. Louis by his friend George Engelmann the botanist
and organizer of the Saint Louis Academy of Science. The two studied together
for a time. The next year Lindheimer
moved to a little farm four miles west of Houston on White Oak Bayou to try his
hand at farming. He also kept up with
his collecting, and since he was not completely happy farming he asked Engelmann
if he thought he could make a living collecting plants.
George Engelmann then contacted Asa
Gray of Harvard and the three of them worked out a plan whereby Lindheimer
would collect plants in Texas and send them to Gray. This was
employment for Lindheimer where he was paid $8.00 per hundred plants, dried
between paper and delivered to Asa Gray.
This collecting went on for almost ten years.
Much of his collecting was
successfully dried and delivered, but because of rainy days and leaky roofs,
many times his collections rotted before they could be dried. This drying problem was the most difficult
aspect of his collecting work, ranking just above the difficulty of the horse
pulling his wagon through mud and the crossing of the big rivers. While in Houston, he ranged for months at a
time collecting from Matagorda Bay to Indianola and on to San Felipe and Cat
Springs. During this time he collected
more than 1000 specimens, many of which “spoiled before they were dried”.
At one point, Lindheimer acquired a
book titled Flora to use as a reference.
He was careful not to send to Asa Gray any plant specimens already
recorded, so he used this book as a reference.
In Houston, Lindheimer was told that to
the north and west was higher ground and maybe a better place to collect plant
specimens. So, in 1844 he loaded his
tools and journals and with his dog set off for Bastrop, then to Austin.
As Lindheimer collected the specimens,
they were then either preserved or documented by making a drawing. Here is a
specimen that was collected in 1927 of Lindheimer’s Senna and is now a botanical
plate housed in the University of Texas in Austin. This is the largest herbarium in Texas with
over a million plant species.
In 1844, Lindheimer was granted a
parcel of land in New Braunfels, where he built a cabin to use as a base for
collecting. The cabin has been preserved. It is located in New Braunfels on the bank of
the Comal River.
Ferdinand Roemer, another German
naturalist, sought to meet Lindheimer at his home in New Braunfels and found
him “in front of his cabin splitting wood….. a thick black beard covered his
face, but he instantly knew he had found Lindheimer”.
The two men had much in common and
collected together during Roemer’s time in Texas. Think of Ferdinand Roemer next spring as your
shade-loving red cedar sage plants, Salvia Roemeriana, bloom.
Writing to Engelmann in October, 1845
about his botanical garden, Lindheimer tells him that it won’t take too much of
his time as he has “somebody who fits into this situation.” He had met a 28 year old woman and they had
married in May. She was a wonderful
helpmate and very good at pressing and packing the plants.
After some time, Max Eugene was born.
Later, as Max was out and about the yard of the home, Chief Satanta of the Kiowa
tribe, a friend of Lindheimer’s, offered
to trade a young Mexican girl and two mules for little Max. No deal, said Lindheimer.
Lindheimer ended his contract with
Gray and Engelmann in 1851. In 1852 he
became the editor of the Neu Braunfelser Zeitung and continued this position
for the next 20 years. He was very
active in the community. The Sophienburg Museum in New Braunfels is definitely
worth a visit, as it contains several displays of Lindheimer’s work.
Ferdinand Lindheimer died in New
Braunfels at the age of 78 in 1879.
According to Joe Marcus of the Lady
Bird Wildflower Center, Lindheimer is credited with the discovery of 41 taxa,
including one genus, 24 species and 16 varieties of plants, all of which are
named after him.
Over his collecting period, he
collected more than 1500 different plants.
Along with Lindheimer, Roemer,
Engelmann and Gray, a few other naturalists working in Texas deserve
mention. Thomas Drummond, a Scot,
collecting for Wm. Hooker of the University of Glasgow, was in Texas in 1833-34
traveling from Galveston to Victoria and was in Bastrop during a cholera
epidemic and the Great Overflow of 1833[1]. He discovered 750 plant and 150 bird
species. Thirty-one Texas species bear
his name. Think of Drummond when you see the Drummond Phlox, Phlox Drummondii along the roadsides in March.
Charles Wright (1811-1885) was an
American born international botanist, Phi Beta Kappa Yale graduate and friend
of Asa Gray. In 1837-1845 he was active
as a teacher, botanist and surveyor in Zavalla, Texas (S.E. of Lufkin) carrying
on explorations along the Neches River and over to the Sabine River. June through September in 1849 he walked 273
miles from San Antonio to El Paso collecting specimens during 104 days. Oct.-Nov. he walked back in 42 days having
collected 1500 species for Gray’s Harvard herbarium.
After 15 years he left Texas to
collect all over the world. Think of him
when you see Flame Acanthus, Anisacanthus
QuadrifidusVar. Wrightii, blooming
right now.
Gideon Lincecum (1793-1874) was an
American born in Georgia whose family was always moving westward. He became a friend of Choctaws and Chickasaws
and by 1830 was specializing in Indian herb medicine. He explored Texas for possible settlement,
lived in Washington County for 20 years and wrote an agricultural paper
presented by Charles Darwin at the Linnaean Society in London. His extensive collecting trip in Central
Texas produced flora and fauna sent to the Smithsonian in 1867. Think of him for identifying the antique
white shrub rose, named Gideon Lincecum.
Julian
Reverchon (1856-1905) was the first to collect
extensively in the western Edwards Plateau.
He personally collected 2,600 species and 20,000 specimens making it one
of the best collections of its kind. It
can be seen at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. In Dallas the original Turtle Creek Park was
renamed Reverchon Park in memory of Julian Reverchon.
Books
Wimberley and San Marcos Libraries both have A Life among the Texas Flora and Roemer’s Texas.
San Marcos has Naturalists
of the Frontier
Sightings
The cooler wet weather should have
brought out more wildlife for sightings, but hardly so here. We observed one snake, a rather mature
whipsnake slithering across the driveway heading for cover. It seems there is always one cottontail
rabbit around (so there must be two) and sure enough, one showed up at the
birdfeeder spillage.
Five youngster raccoons showed up one
evening for a dip in the metal stock tank, then ambled off into the woods. I think they intended to visit with the cat,
but she would have no part of them, so they left.
R & D Tusch
[1] On
November 13, 1833 an especially intense Leonids meteor shower became one of the
most spectacular astronomical sights ever seen in the modern era. This was before street lights and the moon
had already set. People awoke thinking
their houses were on fire.
