Plantabulous! More A to Z of Australian Plants

Catherine Clowes

Rachel Gyan

CSIRO Publishing, 2024

64pp., hbk., RRP $A29.99

9781486317202

When it comes to native Australian flora, students can generally recognise those they see often like the wattle and the waratah, and even some of the eucalypts but with more than 24 000 species -some that survive fire; some that can combat air pollution and even some that are venomous – there is such a diversity that  even the Australian National Botanic Gardens, dedicated to maintaining  a scientific collection of Australia’s native plants, only has about 4,600 species which represents around a fifth of those known.  

Somehow, the author of this book has managed to select 26 to explore in detail in this new book designed to build awareness not only of the diversity but also the role that each plays in the environment.  Each has true-to-life illustrations,  fascinating facts and other information as well as a pronunciation guide so readers can dip and delve as they choose.  There’s a glossary that is tremendous for getting both the tongue and the brain around some of the common words associated with plant life like “germinate”, “photosynthesis”  and the differences between “petals” “sepals” and “tepals”, as well as a map of the various ecoregions found across the continent.  

More for the older, independent reader seeking more detailed information, rather than a beginners’ guide, nevertheless, it is easily readable and definitely has a place of the shelf for any burgeoning botanist, and worth seeking out the first in the series. Plantastic.