1699-1777

American Naturalist, Botanist and Explorer

John Bartram is best known as a naturalist and as the first American botanist. His explorations resulted in the identification, collection, and propagation of much of the flora of the American colonies.

Bartram was born into a Quaker family and grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania. He received no formal education but taught himself, learning by observing the natural world closely and reading everything he could obtain on biological subjects. In 1728 he established, on his farm, the first botanical garden in America. It was here that he performed the experiments that resulted in the first successful hybridization of flowering plants in America. He and Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) became friends. He helped Franklin organize the American Philosophical Society and was one of its first members.

An illustration from the 1904 edition of Bartram's Garden by eighteenth-century botanist John Bartram.

John Bartram...