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• Introduction
• John
Day and his scrapbooks
• Conserving
orchids
• Investigating
orchids
• Orchid
collecting - then and now
• Orchids
from the New World tropics
• Orchids
of the mysterious East
• Orchids
out of Africa
Sophronitis coccinea
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Few plants can have excited more interest in Victorian society
than the orchids. With flowers either curious or elegant, so diverse
in size, shape and hue, tropical orchids met people’s cravings
for the exotic. The tales of their collectors added to their fascination;
stories of journeys to far-off lands; of hardships and dangers;
of challenges met and overcome; of strange but enchanting plants
and animals.
John Day (1824 – 1888) was a prominent orchid grower
and enthusiast of the time. He created a series of over fifty scrapbooks
containing nearly three thousand exquisitely detailed drawings and
watercolours of these plants over a quarter of a century. For some
40 years Day acquired newly collected plants, cultivated them in
his own glasshouses and brought many into flower for the first time
in this country. For him, as for many Victorians, these astonishing
plants undoubtedly came to represent a vision of paradise.
More: John
Day and his scrapbooks >>>
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