Hi Kids!

Welcome to the Puc Puggy Pages on Bartram's Garden's Web site.

Over there on the right is a picture of the discovery of the Franklin Tree!

Below, learn what or who a "Puc Puggy " is?

William Bartram AKA "Puc Puggy"

William Bartram was born at Bartram's Garden in 1739 as one of John and Ann Bartram's nine children. As a young boy, he went on plant collecting trips with his father, who called him "Billy, my little botanist."

William made nature drawings and spent so much time exploring nature that his father worried he would never learn a trade to support himself. Indeed, he failed many times in the business world.

While a young man, William took a long an dangerous trip to the wilds of the American South. For four years, he collected plants, shells, reptiles and insects; wrote about nature, made drawings of the animals and plants he saw and was almost eaten by an alligator!

When he returned to Philadelphia, he turned his field notes into a book called Travels, which made him famous.

"Puc Puggy certainly is a funny name, isn't it? Well, here's the story behind the name.

This whole website is about John and William Bartram, who were famous 18th centruy father-and-son botanists, naturalists and explorers. They were friends with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

Today visitors and schoolchildren come to see their Philadelphia home and botanical garden, which looks pretty much the same as it did some 250 years ago.

Anyway, William Bartram was a great friend of the Seminole Indians, whom he met on his plant collecting expeditions. William admired the Seminole's culture and was fascinated by their language, dress and ceremonies.

Because William was also a botanist - someone who is plain ol' nutty about plants - and because he traveled here, there and everywhere collecting plants for their home garden, the Seminoles gave him the name Puc Puggy, which means "flower hunter."