ELEMENTS OF BARTRAM'S LANDSCAPE 81 



els, but a gain to all others to whom nature generally and rich- 

 ness and variety of landscape especially are of interest. Yet he 

 accomphshed his main purpose — and more. He shipped many 

 cases of specimens to his London patron, and apparently over- 

 looked very little, but the true vegetable kingdom of Bartram 

 remains in the pages of his book. 



Bartram saw trees. Magnolias fascinated him, and the mag- 

 nolia grandiflora is the j&rst tree he mentions, along with other 

 species he has observed — " Magnolia glauca. Magnolia pryami- 

 data " (p. 6) . Often he combines an aesthetic description with 

 his scientific specifications: "The Laurel Magnolia ... are 

 the most beautiful and tall that I have any where seen . . . 

 Their usual height is about one hundred feet . . . The flowers 

 are ... in the center of a coronet of dark green, shining, 

 ovate pointed entire leaves: they are large, perfectly white, and 

 expanded like a full blown Rose" (pp. 85-86). Another fa- 

 vorite tree of his was the Gordonia lasianthus, which, again he 

 either merely names among other trees or describes subjectively: 

 " The tall, aspiring Gordonia lasianthus, which now stood in 

 my view in all its splendour, is every way deserving of our 

 admiration ... Its thick foliage, of a dark green colour, is 

 flowered over with large milk-white fragrant blossoms ..." 

 (p. 161 ). His discovery of a new tree is an occasion for sev- 

 eral paragraphs. Thus he describes a tree which he had at first 

 accepted to be a species of Gordonia but finally convinced him- 

 self that it belonged to a "' new tribe," which he named Frank- 

 lima Altamaha. " This very curious tree," he informs us, " was 

 first taken notice of about ten or twelve years ago, at this place, 

 when I attended my father on a botanical excursion; but, it 

 being then late in the autumn, we could form no opinion to 

 what class or tribe it belonged. We never saw it grow in any 

 other place " (pp. 467-468). 



A complete list of all the trees Bartram describes would fill 

 a fair-sized botanical dictionary. Naturally enough, he paid 

 especial attention either to uncommon species of trees often 

 seen in his home region or to tropical and semi-tropical trees. 

 He tells us that the " Carica papaya, both male and female," 

 at one time claimed his " whole attention," and that he thought 



