Mary E. White

Mary Elizabeth White (22 February 1926 – 5 August 2018) was an Australian paleobotanist and author, notable for collecting numerous plant fossils for the Australian Museum, describing a number of new plant fossil species, and authoring several well received, large format science books for the general readership including "The Greening of Gondwana" and successors.

Biography Early years and scientific career White was born in South Africa, grew up in southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and received a master's degree in paleobotany from the University of Cape Town.

She began writing large format, well illustrated science books after her husband died in 1981, highlights including "The Greening of Gondwana" (1986); "The Nature of Hidden Worlds" (1990), "Time in Our Hands" (1991), and "After the Greening: The Browning of Australia" (1994), the last of which received one of the 1994 Eureka Prizes.

In 2003, White purchased a large forested property, Falls Forest Retreat, approximately halfway between Taree and Port Macquarie in New South Wales; she established a covenant to protect the land and preserve its biodiversity. After more than two years' delay, Eckersley was eventually found guilty, not of murder but of the lesser charge of manslaughter and was spared jail time, instead being sentenced to a two year community corrections order on account of what the judge termed her "low moral culpability" due to a "diagnosis of severe depression".

Awards and honours White received honorary doctorates from four Australian universities, She was awarded the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science's Mueller Medal in 2001. In 2009, she was made a Member the Order of Australia (AM) for "service to botany as a researcher and through the promotion of increased understanding and awareness of the natural world".

Publications Books Australia's Prehistoric Plants & Their Environment (Methuen, 1985) The Greening of Gondwana – The 400 Million Year Story of Australia's Plants (Reed Books, 1986) The Nature of Hidden Worlds – Animals and Plants in Prehistoric Australia and New Zealand (Reed Books, 1990) Muttaburrasaurus: An Australian Dinosaur in Its Time and Space (Houghton Mifflin, 1990) – with Robyn Muche (Illustrator) Amphibians of the Triassic : Tadpole Hunting 220 Million Years Ago (Houghton Mifflin, 1990) – with Robyn Muche (Illustrator) Time in Our Hands – Semi-precious Gemstones: Keys to the Geological Past (Reed Books, 1991) After the Greening: The Browning of Australia (Houghton Mifflin, 1994), received a Eureka Prize Listen... Our Land is Crying (Kangaroo Press, 1997) Reading the Rocks (Kangaroo Press, 1999) Running Down: Water in a Changing Land (Kangaroo Press, 2000), which was shortlisted for a Eureka Prize Earth Alive! From Microbes to a Living Planet (Rosenberg Publishing, 2003)

Scientific papers refer text.