A Rare Magnolia Flower

John and William Bartram, 1999

This beautiful stamp depicts a rare flower found in Georgia called the Franklinia. The flower was discovered by colonial father/son Botanists John and William Bartram.

This flower is depicted on two different USPS stamps. The original artwork for this stamp, a botanical drawing from the late 1700s, is depicted below. See the other Franklinia stamp from 1969 here. 

More about this flower from Mystic Stamp (my favorite resource for researching stamps): 

 It was discovered on the banks of the Alatahama River in Georgia in 1765 by John Bartram, who was exploring the area with his son William when he spotted a "curious looking shrub" on the opposite bank.  In 1767, he sent his son William back to gather seeds and leaves from the tree. This was fortuitous, because William continued to search for more specimens without success until 1791, when he finally realized that he and his father had found a completely new species, which he renamed in honor of his father's good friend Ben Franklin, who had recently died in 1790. Other researchers did find other specimens eventually, but they were not healthy and the plant was declared extinct in the wild in 1803.  All the trees in existence today come from the seeds that William collected in 1767 and nurtured for many years.