Bartram, John

(born March 23, 1699, Marple, Pa., U.S.—died Sept. 22, 1777, Kingsessing, Pa.) naturalist and explorer, considered the “father of American botany.” Largely self-educated, he was a friend of Benjamin Franklin and the botanist for the American colonies to George III. He was the first North American experimenter to hybridize flowering plants, and he established near Philadelphia a botanical garden that became internationally famous. He explored the Alleghenies and the Carolinas and in 1743 was commissioned by the British crown to explore the wilderness north to Lake Ontario in Canada. In 1765–66 he explored extensively in Florida with his son William Bartram.

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