Why You Need to Know William Bartram

My curiosity has taken me down many a rabbit hole. This time, several layers deep into my search for early American botanists and botanical illustrators, I found William Bartram, who has been described as America's first botanical illustrator.

In addition, William's curiosity about the natural world led to observations referenced in Darwin's Origins of the Species a generation later. As William journeyed through the Southeastern colonies between 1773 and 1776, recording plant and bird species, he also wrote unbiased observations of Native Americans. Taken together, his notebook, The Travels of William Bartram, is an historical archive for naturalists, anthropologists and environmentalists.

William Bartram, such a delightful soul, was a wanderer and wonderer. His charming journal published in 1791 kept me awake many a night. I read some sections quickly to ensure that William escaped swarms of alligators fighting, bellowing, and swirling in a mating dance at the edge of his river camp. I giggled in delight when he decided to race a whip snake in Florida that periodically reared up, eye to eye with William, as they raced. I paused as he paused in his journey to describe the beauty of dew drops, the morning sunlight gracing the forest, and the rare Venus Flytrap found only in NC and SC. Along the way, I stood with him as he pondered survival and extinction in the natural world.

How kindly William spoke of all the settlers who give him shelter; even those who were a little rough around the edges. Thank goodness he did not have a camera; he sketched and described all that he saw with an artist's eye and poetic articulation.

It is easy to conclude why William was John Bartram's favorite son, although he surely tried his father's patience as a dreamy head-in-the-clouds youth, who was rather inept at any venture his father had him try.

John Bartram was a maniacal plant sleuth and collector, who fueled the passion for American Plants in Georgian England, earning his title Botanist to the King in 1765. John Bartram collected and shipped seeds and seedlings from Philadelphia to his friend and agent in England, Peter Collinson. American plants and naturalistic style of landscape became the gardening trend, mostly due to Bartram, and curators of major gardens in Europe wanted Bartram's plants. With his growing reputation as a botanist, John Bartram co-founded the American Philosophical Society with Benjamin Franklin and other kindred spirits.

John Bartram was under heavy pressure to send seed box collections and seedlings from the colonies to Europe, and he needed William's assistance. I can imagine John Bartram, screaming in a letter from his home in Philadelphia, that might or might not find his son in the Carolina's, Georgia or Florida hinterlands, the letter demanding this: "Come home immediately to help me collect the seed boxes for the King, and stop wandering around in the swamps under the spell of pitcher plants."

William was also doing important work by recording his observations and publishing them. Besides the book's value in documenting plant, animal and bird species of the period, the book also provides pinnacle documentation of Native American tribes living in the mid-1700's in the southeast. In Part IV of the Travels, he provides a list of each tribe and its population size in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. He writes about their cultures, values, and livelihood, as well as their interactions with the settlers and each other. He concluded that native Americans were noble in spirit, adept in farming, and skilled at caring for the forests. He wrote, "As moral men, they certainly stand in no need of European civilization."

From early colonial history, the European migrants viewed Native Americans as a hindrance to their ambitions and bartered for their lands or took it by force. William gives us an important account of displacement during this period. To put this in context, there were an estimated 30 Indigenous tribes numbering approximately 35,000 individuals in the coastal plains of North Carolina in 1584. By 1710, nearly thirty years before William was born, only 5,000 native Americans remained in the NC coastal plains. (Our State magazine; July 2021)

There is so much worth knowing about how William approached life and what he discovered. But this vignette also includes how I came across The Travels of William Bartram, how I fell into this "rabbit hole", what I learned, and who I met along the way. Rabbit holes being what they are, lead from one interesting thing to the next curiosity, so this story will end with where I have yet to go. A bit like William's.

In case some readers are confused, thinking this is a blog about rabbits, I should explain that falling down a rabbit hole is an allusion to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. A rabbit hole is a metaphor for something that transports someone into a wonderfully (or troublingly) surreal state or situation. Falling down a rabbit hole is to enter into a situation or begin a process or journey that is particularly strange, problematic, difficult, complex, or chaotic, especially one that becomes increasingly so as it develops or unfolds. A rabbit hole frequently refers to an extremely engrossing and time-consuming topic. Such is my life.

My journey began in 2013 when I read the novel, Signature of All Things, by Elizabeth Gilbert. It tells the story of Alma Whitaker, the brilliant daughter of a botanical explorer, living on a fictional estate, White Acre, outside Philadelphia in the early 1800's. Her father runs a botanical business from the best greenhouses in America. Limited in the world of science due to her sex, Alma decides to study mosses that grow on the estate. As we watch Alma watching mosses, Elizabeth Gilbert evokes a sensuality in plant watching that opens the door for a reclusive young man, Ambrose, an orchid painter, to come and work on the estate. Alma falls in love with Ambrose, who sails off to the South Sea islands in search of rare orchids. Eventually some truths are revealed that brings the story to a climax.

The novel was a great read and I learned a lot about plants, in fact I hungered to know more about the early studies of botany during that period. And most of all I wanted to know if Gilbert's fictional characters were based on the lives of real people. Gilbert is an accomplished writer covering dozens of topics through fiction and non-fiction, but was not recognized as an expert on the topic of early American botany.

I wanted to find out where she got this material. I discovered that Gilbert was inspired by a 1784 edition of Cook's Voyages she found in her grandfather's attic. She became fascinated with the emerging science of botany in the 1700's and 1800's, and all that research prepared her to write the novel that led me on this path.

My curiosity about the origins of Gilbert's novel corresponded to my fascination with talented girls and women, living in the 1700's-1800's, whose fathers favored them above their sons and provided equal, sometimes superior education, only for the father to discover that he had created a social pariah of an adolescent girl who followed no social norms and had her own ambitions. Such was the case with Barbara Fuller, Louisa May Alcott, and Emily Dickinson, whom I have written about previously.

I found such female prodigies in the world of botany as well. There was Jane Colden from Massachusetts who, at age 15, corresponded with Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus, who developed our system for codifying plants. While Jane's father was a medical doctor and politician, his avocation was botany and plant hunting, like Bartram. As a young woman, Jane honed her skills as a botanical illustrator and encouraged artistic William Bartram, whom she saw from time to time as their fathers were both horticulturists and friends.

Jane, who lived from 1724-1766, was considered the first woman botanist of colonial America. The title of First Botanical Illustrator was given to William Bartram but could have been shared with Jane. Jane's zeal to capture plants through somewhat crude ink drawings were outmatched by William's exquisite and colorful botanical illustrations; both used drawings to convey plant science.

There are other interesting female botanists from the early 1700's. Elizabeth Blackwell, a botanical illustrator drew specimens from the Chelsea Physic Garden in the 1730's to raise money to get her husband out of debtor's prison. Before her time, Maria Sibylla Meriam (1647-1717) was credited with first documentation of the metamorphosis of a butterfly when she was only 12 years. Several of her gorgeous botanical illustrations can be seen in the Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. I also discovered botanists Marianne North, Jeanne Baret, and Elizabeth Cabot. In the mid-1800's, Mary Treat, an American expert on swamp plants, corresponded with Darwin and offered observations and advice.

Scratching a little deeper I discovered that Alma's character was based on the life and work of Elizabeth Gertrude Britton, a bryologist, curator of mosses, and founder of the New York Botanical Garden, who lived in the mid 1800's. Elizabeth Gilbert's character, Alma, was set 70 years earlier, and like a notable number of other female scientists, made discoveries that preceded those made by male counterparts.

These women were reluctant to release their discoveries because women have learned it takes more work, more facts, and more data for male scientists to accept their findings. This phenomenon is discussed in Walter Isaacson's biography of Jennifer Doudna, The Code Breaker. Doudna was a genetic scientist whose work to understand RNA, underlies many health breakthroughs, including rapid vaccine development for illnesses like the COVID-19 virus.

About the time I was lost on-line and in the library learning about early American botanists, I had a serendipitous invitation. I was passing through Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and my friend Jane Misch, who studies botanical illustration, insisted on taking me to the final day of a William Bartram exhibition of his paintings as well as botanical illustrations produced by other artists to depict the plants discovered by John and William Bartram.

The NC Botanical Garden had concluded a series of exhibits and lectures over two months, Following in the Bartrams' Footsteps, August 20-November 2, 2014, on every topic of interest to me. If I had known, I would have surely attended many of the lectures. All that was left for me was a sense of mourning about what I missed. On the other hand, I did have opportunity to see some original William Bartram botanical illustrations and buy a copy of a Bartram biography by Andrea Wulf, The Brother Gardeners – Botany, Empire, and the Birth of an Obsession.

Since then, I've read the Wulf book twice, and longed for a pilgrimage to Bartram's estate and other gardens on the Schuylkill River from that period. If Bartram's garden became all the rage in England and France, then it is reasonable to assume that John Bartram had a big influence on other gardens and estates in the Philadelphia and Schuylkill River region.

Next, I needed to decide where to go, when to go, and who else I can drag into my rabbit hole to follow in Bartram's footsteps. I pulled out the beautiful tri-fold catalog produced by the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, NC. I perused the twenty-six speakers and event leaders that I sadly missed. I did Bartram genealogy searches to untangle who did what and when It became evident that John Bartram's son, William, was the key figure I wanted to study, so I bought a copy of his published journal.

One of the best things about going down rabbit holes is the people you meet along the way. They cheer, "Keep digging and by the way here's something of interest that I found to share." And so goes my story.

A few years back I stayed with friends, Alison and Jim Vernon, in Chapel Hill. They invited Nancy and Chuck Easterling over for dinner, foreshadowing that we should know each other. This past summer, Nancy and Chuck were visiting Alison and Jim in their Beaufort home. Alison brought Nancy to see my garden and it was at this second meeting I found out that Nancy, now retired from NC Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, had organized the Bartram lecture series.

I poured out my sense of loss to Nancy, the reason being that I had missed this opportunity to learn about William Bartram from the experts. She admitted that she had been so busy managing the events that she only experienced bits and pieces, but now had time and interest to learn more about this fascinating character.

At that moment we decided we would follow in the footsteps of Bartram by visiting his estate and surrounding gardens in the Philadelphia area. After some email exchanges we decided to do this next May of 2022. Nancy suggested that we invite her friend, Cricket Taylor, who had worked at the Botanical Garden and was equally passionate about gardens and Bartram. Coincidentally, I had met Cricket some years back at a New Year's party on Harker's Island, hosted by other great gardening friends, Ann and Martin Bernholz. It was mutually agreed to invite, Alison, a painter, to join our Bartram trip next spring, has she had been the original source of our introductions.

From these two serendipitous meetings, I realized that I had the opportunity to pick Nancy and Cricket's brain about Bartram on the nights we first met, but failed due to trivial social conversation. It's a lesson that when meeting someone, I should assume that they are harboring some great wealth of information, that just needs mining. There is too little time on earth for dribble drabble.

I asked Cricket how I could prepare for this trip. She suggested contacting some of the people who had lectured at the Bartram series. James Costa, Director of the Highland's Biological Station and Biology Professor at Western Carolina University, was high on her list. James is an evolutionary biologist and an expert on Charles Darwin and William Bartram.

My husband, Charles, and I visited our son, Chas, who lives in Asheville, NC in September 2021 and I suggested a family day trip to Highlands, along with Chas's sweetheart Katerina Don. I contacted James Costa and we set a date to meet for an early lunch and a ramble through the Highlands Biological Station while chatting about William Bartram.

James Costa is a very busy guy, juggling university classes, guiding research and plant species propagation and preservation at the Highland's Biological Station, writing grant proposals, and most importantly, wondering about the same things that captivated Charles Darwin and William Bartram. James has a special gift for writing in a style that engages non-scientific reader's interest and understanding about the integral relationship of humans and nature.

James is not shy about taking on big projects, such as writing an annotated edition of the Origin of the Species that helps readers understand the historical context, structure and content of Darwin's masterwork. After spending a day with James, I can understand why his annotated Origin "makes the single most influential work in the history of biology, both accessible and relevant to modern readers (BioScience Magazine)."

Not knowing who we were, he offered to give us an entire afternoon for chatting, walking, and plant watching. I had the feeling that James treats everyone as a potential convert to conservation. We were honored, entertained, and intrigued. For James, engaging inquiry is the key to appreciating and conserving our environment.

After lunch, our first stop was to see a Franklinia alatamah tree planted by Thomas Harbison in downtown Highlands, perhaps 100 years ago. Thomas Harbison was a renowned local horticulturist who supplied plants to the Biltmore Estate gardens. The seed or cuttings for the Franklinia, a tree related to the camellia, came from the Bartram Gardens.

John and William Bartram discovered the Franklinia tree in October 1765 while exploring along Georgia's Altamaha River and named it after John's friend, Benjamin Franklin. They were fascinated that the tree only grew in one location. William took seeds back to Philadelphia and planted them in 1777. By 1803 this tree was extinct in the wild.

The only Franklinias living today are descended from those propagated and distributed by the Bartram's, who are credited with saving this lovely tree from extinction. Together, John and William Bartram described 358 species of plants in their collective journals, 130 of these being new to science at the time (Laurel of Asheville.com). The Franklinia tree was of special interest to both the Bartram's and later to Darwin on the subject of plant extinction, as well as seed dispersal and natural selection.

At the Highland's Biological Station, we observed plant species in varied habitats - -woodland, bog, meadow, etc. The grounds were brimming with students conducting small scale research as part of university coursework or taking part in workshops that are conducted year round at the Station. We saw a small stand of lofty hemlock trees, a symbol of the station's role to safeguard rare plants. There were massive beds of carnivorous plants so spectacular to warrant a trip if for no other reason than to paint or photograph them.

The Venus Flytrap, endemic to coastal NC and SC was first noted by Bartram and brought to the attention of European naturalists in the 1760s. For Darwin, the Venus Fly Trap underscored the continuity of animal and vegetable life so central to his theory of common evolutionary descent.

In parting, James Costa shared several of his published articles that explore the intersections between Charles Darwin and William Bartram, who lived in the century previous to Darwin and a continent away. I started this adventure enchanted with William Bartram. After reading the articles on Darwin, I realized that Darwin and William had similar personalities. Darwin was not the stuffy guy in the oil portraits, but an impish, delightful explorer, who engaged everyone he knew in his wild and crazy experiments to understand the forces that shaped transmutation, natural selection, and extinction. Because of James, I saw Darwin in a whole new light.

Two of my favorites Costa essays were: "The Impish Side of Evolution's Icon" (American Scientist, Volume 106; March/April 2018) and "A Fool's Experiments" (PuLSe – Newsletter of the Linnaean Society of London; Issue 36; December 2017). In these articles we meet Darwin as a passionate experimenter who engaged his wife and seven children, the hired help, and extended family and neighbors in what he self-described as "fool's experiments". In these experiments he buttressed arguments in the Origin of the Species, and explored key concepts in ecology and evolution.

He wondered how remote islands were populated with plants. That led him to think about whether a seed might travel across oceans in salt water. If so, for how long and through what different processes, such as floating or carried in the gullet of a dead bird, an idea put forward and tested by his 8-year-old son, Francis. An original "crowd sourcer" Darwin engaged a battery of citizen scientists to conduct experiments and share their findings. One challenge, for example, was to find out who could reproduce a plant from a seed that had floated in saltwater over the longest duration.

No idea ventured by his children was dismissed out of hand, because Darwin was propelled by his own lifelong sense of childlike wonder. As Costa wrote in his essay, The Impish Side of Evolution's Icon, "Darwin's home was a veritable field station and no family holiday lacked experimental pursuits: on one Darwin could be found feeding his toenails to sundews; on another he was thrashing wild foxglove plants, trying to stimulate lashing winds to test its effects on pollination."

In typical blogginess, I've strayed from the subject at hand, or have I? While my intention was to encourage you to read The Travels of William Bartram, my side notes of interesting people and ideas found in "rabbit holes" makes the point that finding connectedness is a no-cost ticket to a meaning-filled life, one that better equips us to save each other and our planet. As American conservationist, John Muir, wrote in 1911, "When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." This message was reinforced as I fell down this rabbit hole.

I stared at my computer trying to decide how to bring this full circle. Better, I thought, to stare at my garden. So I went outside to work on a deliciously warm November day. As I walked around my autumn garden, I chuckled. I used to think that spring was the time to visit a garden to appreciate its splendor. In fact, that is why my friends and I planned our Bartram trip for next May. When James Costa invited us to visit the Research Station in the fall, I foolishly thought there wouldn't be much to see, but found that autumn plants preparing to propagate and to sleep, have a ravishing beauty and essential work we must see, understand and support.

Since taking lessons from William Bartram, Charles Darwin and James Costa, I learned that the most essential work of the garden takes place in the fall, with seed production and dispersal, with late blooming flowers that attract butterfly pollinators, and with preparation for rest. It is easy to appreciate the aesthetics of nature but it is the science of nature that adds dimension to beauty, and enables us to do our part. Scientific inquiry helps us understand our connection to the natural world and to see the actions we need to take as stewards.

I have five varieties of leopard plants in my garden. My favorite is a giant curly leaf leopard plant that is the eye candy of my back garden, along with our spectacular heritage oak. In the fall, my leopard plants send up stalks of yellow flowers like fireworks.

For many years I was naively delighted that these beautiful plants provided me with cut flowers for the house after the mums had turned brown. Each fall some flowers escaped my shears and turned to dandelion-like fluff, and from time to time new seedlings appeared in the spring.

Last year, my neighbor, Sue Johnson, who is a horticulturist, taught me how to propagate the leopard plant's seeds. I made a leopard nursery last fall and this past summer I had more than fifty giant leopard plants to share. Just yesterday some of our previous AIRBNB guests sent me a photo of three of my babies.

In the fall, our garden is covered in millions of acorns from the giant Live Oak. I dutifully rake them up and put them in yard waste cans to be picked up by the city. Yesterday, as I raked the acorns I wondered what my old tree thought about this, and decided to create a little acorn nursery, providing a little help to the squirrels, who plant acorns in my flower pots only slightly faster than I have previously followed behind and extracted them.

One day my tree will have lived out her life and die. How nice to know she has passed something on, and that I helped her to do so. My view about my own responsibility in the survival of our species has changed.

As James says, "if our species is capable of understanding this connectedness but remains willfully ignorant of the implications of this truth, therein lies the tragedy." We need to move beyond simply enjoying the beauty in our natural world to a place of inquiry. How does all this natural beauty connect to each other and to ourselves? What are the implications for action? That's what William Bartram, Charles Darwin, and James Costa would have us do.

I look forward to visiting the Bartram estate next spring. James offered to contact his friend Joel Fry, Curator of the Bartram Garden, to offer advice for our visit. And if so moved, I can further travel in the footsteps of William Bartram following marked trails described in William Bartram's journal in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. The 80-mile NC section begins just south of Highlands.

This is where the Travels of William Bartram left me.

I invite you to take your own journey.

Credits:

· The image for Bartram seed boxes came from centerforartinwood.org.

· The photo of the Bartram estate came from Smithsonian Magazine.

· The map of Bartram's travel comes from Dumbarton Oaks.

· The photo of the Bartram trail in NC comes from ThelaurelofAsheville.com.

· A few of William Bartam's botanical illustrations that are widely found on the internet

· All other photos taken by the author.