Born in Großenhain, in the Electorate of Saxony, under the name Friedrich Traugott Pursh, he was educated at Dresden Botanical Gardens, and emigrated to the United States in 1799.
By 1805, he was working for Benjamin Smith Barton on a new flora of North America, under whom he studied the plants collected on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
He made both trips principally on foot, with only his dog and a gun, covering over three thousand miles each season.
Barton's proposed flora was never written, but Pursh, who then moved to London, England, did make a major contribution to North American botany in his Flora americae septentrionalis; or A Systematic Arrangement and Description of The Plants of North America (variously dated as published in 1813 or 1814).
He botanized a great deal in Quebec, but all the material he accumulated was destroyed by fire before it could be organized into suitable form for publication.