Author(s): Hugh D. Wilson

New Zealand

This book details the extraordinary past and present of Banks Peninsula plant life, using vivid drawings and photographs, clear maps, and entertaining text. It will appeal to keen plants people and professional botanists alike. Author and illustrator, eminent botanist Hugh Wilson has lived most of his life on or near the Peninsula. This book is the culmination of 30 years work, a labour of love designed to inform and delight a wider public about the richly diverse plants of Banks Peninsula. Banks Peninsula is a remarkable volcanic landform jutting into the Pacific from the eastern flank of New Zealand's South Island. Once forested, the land was stripped of nearly all its trees and much of its original wildlife by two consecutive tsunamis of human colonisation, Polynesian and European. However, the Peninsula remains a unique, biodiverse landscape on the doorstep of the South Island's largest city, Christchurch. Against all odds it continues to sustain an astonishing array of flora and fauna.