30i 



not have access to these documents, I have thought that the fol- 

 lowing brief account of this latter oak — its history and the con- 

 troversy regarding it — -might not be out of place : 



Some time during the early part of the last century a peculiar 

 oak tree attracted the attention of botanists and others. It was a 

 single individual, growing on the farm of Mr. John Bartram, on 

 the banks of the Schuylkill, just above Philadelphia. From its 

 location it received the name ** Bartram Oak." It was also called 

 ** Burners Oak," though why this latter name I have never been 

 able to obtain the slightest clue. Just when the tree was first ob- 

 served there does not appear to be any record, but it must have 

 been prior to the year 1750, for on page 183 of Darlington's 

 " Memorials of Bartram and Marshall" there is printed a copy of 

 a letter which was written by Peter ColUnson to John Bartram, 



from which I extract as follows : 



Mch. 5tli, 1750-1. 



My Good Friend John: 



Pray what is the reason I have no acorns from that particular species of oak 

 that Dr. Mitchell fovmd in thy meadow? And I observe, in thy specimens, two 

 other narrow leaved oaks. As I have now ground enough I wish for a dozen 

 good acorns of each, * * * * 



Thine, P. Collinson. 



This is, I believe, the earliest reference in literature to this 

 oak. No scientific name was given to it nor was it even 'men- 

 tioned in Humphrey Marshall's ** Arbustrum Americanum/' pub- 

 lished in 1785. Andreas Michaux's "Flora Boreali- Americana/' 

 published in 1803 and reprinted in 1820, does not enumerate it 

 among the oaks, althoucrh it is eviderft that he must have been 



aware of its existence, as his son, F. Andre Michaux, says in his 

 •• Histoire des Arbres Forestiers de V Amerique Septentrionale, 

 published in French in 18 10 and republished in Enghsh in 18 19: 



(See VoL i, p. 75,76; plate 18.) '' Bartram Oak. Qtiercus 

 heterophylla. Every botanist who has visited different regions oi 

 the globe must have remarked certain species of vegetables which 

 are so little multiplied that they seem likely at no distant period 

 to disappear from the earth. To this class belongs the Bartram 

 Oak. Several English and American naturalists, who, like my 

 father and myself, have spent years in exploring the United States, 

 and who have obligingly communicated to us the result of their 

 observations, have, like us, found no traces of this species except 



