"John Bartram (2 June [O.S. 23 May] 1699, Darby, Pennsylvania - September 22, 1777, Philadelphia) was an early American botanist, horticulturalist, and explorer. Carolus Linnaeus said he was the "greatest natural botanist in the world."

Bartram was born into a Quaker farm family in colonial Pennsylvania. He considered himself a plain farmer, with no formal education beyond the local school, although he had a lifelong interest in medicine and medicinal plants, and read widely. His botanical career started with a small area of his farm devoted to growing plants he found interesting; later he made contact with European botanists and gardeners interested in North American plants, and developed his hobby into a thriving business. He came to travel extensively in the eastern American colonies collecting plants, from Lake Ontario in the north, to Florida in the south and the Ohio River in the west. Many of his acquisitions were transported to collectors in Europe.

Bartram is considered the "father of American Botany", and was one of the first practicing Linnaean botanists in North America. His plant specimens were forwarded to Linnaeus, Dillenius and Gronovius and he assisted Linnaeus' student Pehr Kalm during his extended collecting trip to North America in 1748-1750.

Bartram was aided in his collecting efforts by colonists. In Bartram's Diary of a Journey through the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, a trip taken from July 1, 1765, to April 10, 1766, Bartram wrote of specimens he had collected. In the colony of British East Florida he was helped by Dr. David Yeats, Secretary of the colony.

His 8 acre botanic garden, Bartram's Garden in Kingsessing on the west bank of the Schuylkill, about three miles (5 km) from the center of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is frequently cited as the first true botanic collection in North America. He was one of the co-founders, with Benjamin Franklin, of the American Philosophical Society in 1743." - from Wikipedia