Volney Rattan (May 23, 1840 – March 4, 1915) was an American botanist (collector and teacher) who spent most of his professional life in California.

He was an inspiring teacher, and wrote books to help those with botanical interests to learn principles of taxonomy, and to help them identify native plants of California.

His "Popular California Flora" was well suited to its purpose and it has given to thousands of Californians a pleasure in the fields and forests which they associate with their earliest experience of wild life.

[11] In letters to Asa Gray and George Engelmann, Rattan told of some of his collecting trips to rugged areas of northwest California (Humboldt and other counties), during summer vacations starting in 1878.

[10] Many of the previously unknown plants he sent to those gentlemen were named in his honor by them; other prominent botanists, including California botanist Edward Lee Greene and Asa Gray associate Sereno Watson, also named plant species in Rattan's honor.