Along the famous Bartram Trail this stunning oak tree grows near the roadside in Astor, Florida. Situated near Spaudling’s Upper Store the tree was said to have provided shade to William Bartram as he prepared cuttings and seeds for shipment to England in 1774. For four years Bartram journeyed through Georgia and Florida, seeking new species of plants. Today, the Pierson Florida Garden Club cares for the Central Florida tree.

The tree became one of Stephen Malkoff's favorite and its illustration by the artist is the subject of a Public Television documentary.

William Bartram Oak
Bartram Trail - Astor, Florida

William Bartram was America’s first native born naturalist/artist and the first author in the modern style of writers who portrayed nature through personal experience as well as scientific observation.

Bartram’s momentous southern journey took him from the foothills of the Appalachian mountains to Florida, through the southeastern interior all the way to the Mississippi River. His work thus provides descriptions of the natural, relatively pristine eighteenth-century environment of eight modern states: North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee. William Bartram published an account of his adventure in 1791. It quickly became an American classic and Bartram's Travels has been described by one scholar as “the most astounding verbal artifact of the early republic.”