Norton Fausto Garfield

John Day (botanist) Norton Fausto Garfield

Publisher Marketing: Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. 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. These scrapbooks were donated to The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1902 by his sister, Emma Wolstenholme. Day was born in the City of London in 1824, the son of a wealthy wine merchant. He bought his first collection of orchids in 1852 at an auction of the stock of Loddiges nursery upon its closure. 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. Between 1863 and 1888 at the height of orchid mania in Victorian England, John Day painted and sketched orchids from his own collection in Tottenham, London nurseries, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and visited the tropics to see orchid habitat at first hand.