Louisa Atkinson

Caroline Louisa Waring Calvert was an Australian writer, botanist and illustrator. Born near Berrima, New South Wales, in 1834, she grew up on rural properties and developed an interest in botany and natural history. By the age of nineteen she had begun to publish illustrated newspaper columns on the Australian natural landscape. She was a keen amateur botanist, collecting specimens of native plants from across the Blue Mountains region to send to scientists, as well as producing a large body of illustrations of native plants and animals. Atkinson published six novels and a number of short stories, largely set in the Australian bush.