John Lindley

Botanist and horticulturalist, born in Catton, Norfolk, E England, UK. He was appointed assistant secretary to the Horticultural Society of London in 1827, and was professor of botany at University College London (1829–60). In 1828 he prepared a report on the royal gardens at Kew which saved them from destruction, and this led to the creation of the Royal Botanic Gardens. The most important of his many publications were those on orchids and The Vegetable Kingdom (1846).

John Lindley (February 8, 1799 - November 1, 1865) was an English botanist.

Lindley was born at Catton, near Norwich, where his father, George Lindley, author of A Guide to the Orchard and Kitchen Garden, owned a nursery garden.

In his labours on this undertaking, which was completed in 1829, and by arduous studying the pattern of characters, he became convinced of the superiority of the "natural" system of Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, i.e.

In 1829 Lindley, who since 1822 had been assistant secretary to the Horticultural Society, was appointed to the chair of botany in University College, London, which he retained till 1860; During his professoriate he wrote many scientific and popular works, besides contributing largely to the Botanical Register, of which he was editor for many years, and to The Gardeners' Chronicle, in which he had charge of the horticultural department from 1841.

Besides those already mentioned, his works include :

An Outline of the First Principles of Horticulture (1832) An Outline of the Structure and Physiology of Plants (1832) Nixus Plantarum (1833) A Natural System of Botany (1836) The Fossil Flora of Great Britain (with William Hutton, 1831-1837) Flora Medica (1838) Theory of Horticulture (1840) The Vegetable Kingdom (1846) Folia Orchidacea (1852) Descriptive Botany (1858).

In 1841 he co-founded The Gardeners' Chronicle alongside Joseph Paxton, Charles Wentworth Dilke and William Bradbury and became its first editor.

He is one of the fathers of orchid classification and plant systematics in general.

The standard botanical author abbreviation Lindl. is applied to species he described.