Australian Rainforest Fruits A Field Guide

About this book

This beautifully illustrated field guide covers 504 of the most common fruiting plants found in Australia's eastern rainforests, as well as a few species that are rare in the wild but generally well-known. These spectacular plants can be seen from Cape York to Victoria, with some species also found in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and overseas.

Rainforest fruits are often beautifully coloured, and in Australian Rainforest Fruits: A Field Guide the species are arranged by colour of ripe fruit, then by size and form. Five broad categories – pink to purple, blue to black, yellow and orange to red, green to brown, and white – allow people with even limited botanical knowledge to identify rainforest fruits.

Each species description is accompanied by a leaf drawing, a distribution map, and diagnostic characters to help the reader distinguish similar species.

Australian Rainforest Fruits includes stunning artwork by Australia's leading natural history artist, William T Cooper. It will be sought not just by bushwalkers and natural history enthusiasts, but also by those who admire botanical art at its best.

Contents

Introduction
Acknowledgements

Key to rainforest fruit
Pale pink, hot pink, reddish-pink or purple fruit
Blue to black or blackish fruit
Red, orange or yellow fruit
Green to brown fruit
White fruit
Check list of fruiting rainforest plants in eastern Australia (excluding orchids)

Glossary
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Wendy Cooper is the author of two previous titles specialising in fruits of the Australian rainforest. She received a Cassowary Award from The Wet Tropics Management Authority in recognition of her second book, Fruits of the Australian Tropical Rainforest. As a Research Associate at the Australian Tropical Herbarium she is involved in taxonomic studies of selected rainforest genera.

William T Cooper AO is Australia’s leading natural history artist. In 1990 he was awarded the Philadelphia Academy of Science (USA) Gold Medal, and in 1994 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contribution to art and to ornithology. A collection of his original paintings is owned by the National Library of Australia and many others are in private collections around the world.