Eleanor Vachell was an outstanding amateur botanist from Cardiff. Her botanical diary tells the stories of her botanical adventures with her friends and many of the other leading botanists of the day. Not only are the stories about the trips to see such species as Phyllodoce or Cypripedium or getting lost on Ben Lawers a delight for any botanist to read, but the social history portrayed provides a unique record of botany and its etiquette in the Botanical Exchange Club between the wars, and the fledgling BSBI immediately after.