Eleanor Vachell (1879–1948) was a Welsh botanist who is remembered especially for her work identifying and studying the flora of Glamorgan and her connection with the National Museum of Wales where she was the first woman to be a member of its Council and Court of Governors.

[1] She was the eldest child of Winifred and Charles Tanfield Vachell, a physician in Cardiff where she was born on 8 January 1879,[2] followed in the 1890s by her brother Eustace and sister Sylvia.

[4] She belonged to the Wild Flower Society and the Botanical Exchange Club and went on plant-hunting trips with friends who were also members, including Gertrude Foggitt and Joanna Charlotte Davy.

This is one of Britain's rarest plants and for many years the Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum of Wales) had only a small rhizome that had been gathered by Vachell on 29 May 1926.

One of her obituarists, H. A. Hyde, keeper of botany at the National Museum of Wales, said she gave much help and encouragement to younger botanists and shared her expertise generously.

Her will specified an additional £500 "to form a fund to assist amateur botanical research" and the expenses of publishing a future "Flora of Glamorgan" making use of her manuscripts.