John Day (botanist)

John Day (1824–1888) was an English orchid-grower and collector, and is noted for producing some 4000 illustrations of orchid species in 53 scrapbooks over a period of 15 years.

At an average price of £1 each, he acquired 50 tropical orchids, not the more common Cymbidiums, but Dendrobiums from India, Odontoglossums from tropical America, Lycastes, and Cattleyas, which he grew under ideal conditions in an orchid house built with an exemplary heating system, in the grounds of his home at High Cross, Tottenham.

A large number of his illustrations depict plants he had coaxed into flower and are the first-known images of species.

He maintained close links with Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach, the orchid taxonomist at the University of Hamburg.

In 2004 Thames and Hudson published a collection of John Day's artwork in A Very Victorian Passion: The Orchid Paintings of John Day by Phillip Cribb and Michael Tibbs, two leading authorities on Orchidaceae, who provide a detailed review of the history, background, and botany of the orchids depicted.