The Bartrams' Florida

          
          Determining the plant species John Bartram may have encountered on November 15, 1765 on his way from St. Augustine to Picolata starts with his own journal.  John was one of those few scientists who “had his feet on the ground,"  describing soils and environs, as well as the plants encountered.   By studying environmental clues and plant common names,  we get a fairly good picture of the ecology possibly witnessed in 1765.  Without access to the voucher specimens at the Natural History Museum, London,  it is impossible to determine exactly which plant species were seen.  [Future projects include the digitization of Bartram specimens at the Natural History Museum, London.]   John Harper dedicated much work to the scientific reconciliation of John Bartram’s diaries, and his work ⁽¹⁾ was consulted extensively during the preparation of the current listing.

Of course our first and most obvious clues lie in the plant names assigned by John Bartram.   Once we get past spelling inconsistencies such  “oakes” to “oaks” and accepting that “nissa’ is probably  “nyssa," the task becomes somewhat more challenging and fun. With over 30 species of oaks and of nyssas in Florida, we can only conjecture about the specific ones encountered.

What we do know is that John Bartram and Linnaeus were friends; therefore,  Bartram may have been naming plants based on  Linnaeus' binomial system.   If that is the case, only specimens named by Linneaus prior to the 1765 would have been recognized by Bartram.   While taxonomists have reevaluated many of Linneaus' species, it is probable that we can, for the most part, accept Bartram's names at the genera level.  

Further refinement of species identification occurred after consulting  Wunderlin's Flora of Florida and his Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants.   Wunderlin's species distribution maps give some indication where species occurred historically.  However, since Wunderlin based distribution on voucher specimens, the absence of location does not mean that the species doesn't or couldn't grow there, it just hasn't been recorded as being there.  

A more extensive look at floras of Florida such as Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of Northern Florida and adjacent Georgia and Alabama, by Robert Godfrey (University of Georgia, 1988,)  Aquatic and Wetland Plants of southeastern United States: Monocotyledons/Dicotyledons by Robert Godfrey and Jean Wooten (University of Georgia, 1979/1981,) and  Ecosystems of Florida by Ron Myers and John Ewel (University of Central Florida Press, 1990)  further narrowed the possibilities.   
          A final selection resulted from comparing findings in the literature with my field experience, those of Kent Perkins, Registrar of the Herbarium, University of Florida, and some scientifically trained “Florida Crackers."   The names were then checked in A synonymized checklist of the vascular flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland, by John Kartesz (Timber Press, 1994) to see if there were synonyms and nomenclature changes.

What did John Bartram’s Florida look like? We can never truly know.  For example there is a reference to  “our screw orchis."   When this is cross-referenced with the literature, we come up with nothing, but John Bartram was from Pennsylvania and perhaps "our" refers to a common species in the Northeastern United States.   Upon further scrutiny “orchis” is a common name applied to some orchids of the genera Platanthera that occur from Pennsylvania to South Carolina.  Though not found in any floras of Florida,  Platanthera is considered an excluded species of Florida by Wunderlin.  So we ask ourselves what did Bartram mean when referring to the “screw orchis”?  If it was in fact a Platanthera, then why has it not been recorded occurring in the area since then? 
     In contrast to the illusive orchis, let us look at the more common “periwinkles” also referenced in the journal.   Vinca spp., or periwinkels, do not occur in any other floras from Florida until the 20^th century.

These citations are intriguing because we ask ourselves were the genera “Vinca” and the “screw orchis” actually here in 1765 and just not recorded again until the turn of the century, or was Bartram mistaken.   Harper chose not to address the "Perriwinkle" question in his texts.  We do not claim to know Bartram’s botanical truth’s, instead we are offering what we believe are reasonable suggestions.   

            Anyone wishing to expand on the botanical aspects of Bartrams' Florida is cordially invited to contact me...   
Michael Bond   (bond@mail.uflib.ufl.edu)
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⁽¹⁾Diary of a Journey through the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida from July 1, 1765, to April 10, 1766  John Bartram.  Annotated by Francis Harper.  Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1942.  (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, new series v.33, pt.1)