John Tradescant the Younger

John Tradescant the Younger, who lived from 1608 to 1662, was an English botanist and gardener, the son of John Tradescant the Elder. Born at Meopham in Kent and educated at The King School, Canterbury, he made collecting expeditions to Virginia between 1628 and 1637 and brought home seeds of magnolias, bald cypress and tulip tree, and garden plants such as phlox and asters. He added his American acquisitions to the family cabinet of curiosities known as The Ark, which held the cloak of Chief Powhatan. He succeeded his father as head gardener to Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria and laid out gardens at the Queen House, Greenwich, in 1638 to 1642. He published the collection catalogue as Musaeum Tradescantianum, and the collection passed to Elias Ashmole and became the core of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.