A collection of manuscripts, correspondence, and photographs related to the life and career of American cacti specialist Ernest Christian Rost.

Ernest Christian Rost (1867-1940) was an artist, pioneer photographer, adventurer, and botanist. He was born in Mount Vernon, New York, son of German parents, Christian Wilhelm Rost, a renowned engraver, and Minna Rost, an embroiderer of military insignia. Rost studied at the National Academy of Design and continued his artistic education in Europe. In the late 1890s, he turned to photography, working in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and Panama. In 1907, he married Etta N. Newbury and by 1918 he settled in California. Having failed at growing grapes in the San Joaquin Valley, he moved to Southern California and settled in Alhambra where he devoted his life to the study of cacti. Rost traveled widely throughout the Mojave Desert, Nevada, Mexico, and Arizona, collecting and classifying desert plants. In 1929, he became an editor of Desert, the official publication of the American Succulent Societies. In 1931, he was elected to the German Horticultural Society. In 1933, Rost sought to publish a book Something about cacti, but the book was never published. Rost died in Alhambra in October 1940.

4.75 Linear Feet (6 boxes and 3 photograph albums in oversize folders)

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