Wildflowers and Plants of Central Australia – by Anne Urban

This is my grandmothers wildflower book, first published in 1990 when I was 18 years old. It’s the most popular central Australian wildflower identification book, loved by botanists, tourists, tour guides and locals alike.

In 2013, Anne passed away and  my mother inherited the rights to her book. Mum and Anne’s brother Peter, a famous botanist who began the first plant walks and herbarium at Uluru-Katatjuta, asked me to take over as publisher.

In 2015, I began the epic task of revising Anne’s book. Plant names are always changing as botany evolves, and with DNA technology coming of age and being applied to botanical plant identification, massive changes had occurred since Anne first wrote her book.

With financial support from my great uncle Peter and guidance from Ian Coleman, who was manager of Olive Pink Botanic Gardens in Alice/Mpartnwe at the time, I began by creating the first digital version of the book, which was still in the old-fashioned plates-only format with the printer. The entire book had to be typed up and, with help from my mother, the original photographic slides were tracked down and restored by an image specialist.

To begin with, we had Peter Jobson, the head botanist at the herbarium in Alice/Mparntwe doing the re-writing. It was, he said, too important a book to let go by the wayside. But Peter was stretched thin across too many projects and his side-kick Barb Gilfedder gradually took over the project, eventually bringing her friend Jenny Purdie in to help her. We had the lovely Lynn Day as botanical expert proof-reader and the very talented Gillian Ward as our book designer.

Finally, in 2025, everything came together and we launched our newly revised and published book to a delighted audience at Olive Pink, with support from the new manager, Sam Hussey. We sold over 120 books and gave $10 from each sale to the gardens as a donation.

(If you are a wholesale outlet, you can source these books from Brumby Sunstate)