John Tradescant the Younger

John Tradescant the Younger (1608 to 1662) was an English gardener and plant collector, the son of John Tradescant the Elder. Between 1628 and 1637 he made collecting expeditions to Virginia and brought back seeds that introduced American trees such as magnolia, bald cypress and tulip tree, and garden plants such as phlox and asters, to English gardens. On his father's death he became head gardener to Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, laying out gardens at the Queen's House in Greenwich. He added his American acquisitions to the family collection of curiosities known as The Ark, published its contents as Musaeum Tradescantianum, and left the collection to Elias Ashmole, whence it passed to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.