Page 80 - Early Naturalists of the Black Range

Paulus Roetter
Roetter did not serve on the Survey. He was an artist who lived in St. Louis. While teaching at Washington University he met George Englemann. Their association is manifest in the many botanical illustrations which appeared in the various expedition and survey reports which Englemann either wrote or participated with others in writing. In the case of the Cactaceae of the Boundary (which George Engelmann wrote), Roetter did 75 of the drawings which appeared in that volume of the Boundary Survey report.
Plate 9 of “Cactaceae of the Boundary” includes a depiction of Mammillaria heyderi, the Little Nipple Cactus (species at the bottom of the plate). This species is found in much of the Black Range at
middle elevations from 3,000’ to 6,000’. The photographs shown on this page, and at the link, were taken near Hillsboro, for instance. The photographs of the species in flower were taken in March 2017, others were taken in January of that year.
Engelmann (p.9 of the volume) notes that this species “is common throughout the southern parts of New Mexico, and may even extend into Sonora.”
The plates in this volume are not only accurate, they are gorgeous.
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