Bartram, John

John (1699-1777), a Quaker farmer. A native of Pennsylvania. Bartram became interested in botany after he was twenty-four years old. He corresponded with the eminent botanists of Europe, to whom he was able to send many new plants to be named. Just imagine the interest with which he sent a new lady's slipper, Cypripedium acaule Ait., to the Kew Garden. Linnaeus pronounced Bartram the greatest natural botanist in the world. He turned his grounds on the Schuylkill River into a botanic garden. Bartram's garden, the first in America, with a stone house built with his own hands, is happily preserved in the park system of Philadelphia. Many of the trees have reached a gigantic size. See Philadelphia