Founded in 1728 by botanist John Bartram on the Tidal Schuylkill in Kingsessing, Bartram's Garden is widely recognized as the oldest surviving botanical garden in North America. Bartram developed the property as a systematic plant collection, and by the mid-eighteenth century it was considered the world's most varied collection of North American plants. Continued by his sons after his death in 1777, it grew in scientific importance and attracted prominent visitors in the early national period. Historic buildings, garden features, and notable trees survive, including stock tied to the Franklin tree and one of North America's oldest ginkgos. Preserved after nineteenth-century decline, it remains a historic landscape, public garden, classroom, library site, and river access point.

Photo: Wikipedia · Public domain

Photo: Wikipedia · Public domain

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania · USA