CHAPTER III 



The Eartram Oaks Corner Oaks"Struck-by-the-Ree's Tree" 

 Washington OakRed Oak at ChesterfieldCouncil Oak of the 

 Santa Fe Trail. 



THE BARTRAM OAKS 



In the southwestern section of Philadelphia, Perm., on the bank 

 of the Schuylkill, stands a quaint old house, built in 1731, by John 

 Bartram, "The Father of American Botany." Surrounding it, and 

 covering from six to seven acres, lies the famous garden which he 

 cultivated through half a century ; a garden which, during his lifetime 

 was a favorite resort of Washington, Franklin and other men of note, 

 and which has survived to our own days as a city park and a centre of 

 interest to nature-lovers. 



Many unusual and interesting trees and shrubs collected by 

 Bartram during his travels through the then unknown region of the 

 eastern and southern portions of the United States, or sent to him by 

 friends at home and abroad, found their way into the garden and a 

 number have survived to our own day. One of the most noticeable 

 of these trees, the heterophyllus oak, so-called because bearing leaves 

 of various shapes, still stands guard just south of the old house. 



An oak of this description, one whose leaves did not all follow 

 the same pattern, was of course a novelty, and Peter Collinson, a dis- 

 tingushed naturalist of London, to whom Bartram was in the habit 

 of sending boxes of botanical specimens, evidently felt somewhat 

 slighted at receiving no seeds of such an unusual tree. On March 5, 

 1770, he wrote to Bartram about it as follows: "Pray what is the 

 reason I have no acorns from that particular species of oak that 

 Doctor Mitchell found in thy meadow"? Adding the Latin name, 

 "Quercus heterophyllus," so that there would be no doubt to what 

 he referred. 



He also had requested, many years previous, acorns of the Wil- 

 low-leaved Oak and of the White and Swamp Spanish Oak, all of 

 them familiar to John Bartram in his travels in American wilds. Per- 

 haps Collinson voiced his impatience at the length of time that elapsed 

 before these treasures reached him, for there is a letter of Bartram's 

 in reply, written in May, 1738, which says: 



"Indeed, I was more than two weeks time in gathering the small 

 acrons of the Willow-leaved Oak, which are very scarce, and falling 

 with the leaves, so that daily I had to rake up the leaves and 

 shake the acorns out, before they were devoured by the squirrels and 

 hogs ; and I reckoned it good luck if I could gather twenty under one 

 tree and hardly one in twenty bore any." 



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