Margaret Mee must rank as one of the most remarkable women of the twentieth century. She was an intrepid explorer of the Brazilian rainforest and an outstanding botanical artist, acclaimed by botanists and art critics worldwide. At the age of 47 Mee started exploring the Amazon, travelling throughout the wildest parts of Amazonia for the next thirty years. Mee learned to live with the forest and its plants, animals and people and learnt much from the Native people about the trees and plants she so meticulously painted. Mee initially sketched the plants in the forest and then worked on the large illustrations of the entire plant in her studio in Rio de Janeiro. Nine of these plants recorded by Mee, previously unknown to science, are now named after her. Flowers of the Amazon Forests: The Botanical Art of Margaret Mee illustrates more than sixty of Mee's major works with additional sketches painted while in the forest. The text is taken directly from the diaries she kept whilst travelling, giving

"Margaret Ursula Mee, (born 22 May 1909 ? 30 November 1988) was a British botanical artist who specialized in plants from the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. She was also one of the first environmentalists to draw attention to the impact of large-scale mining and deforestation on the Amazon Basin. She studied art at St. Martin's School of Art, London. In 1950 she attended the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, where she learnt her style of illustration, and received a national diploma in painting and design in 1950. She moved to Brazil with Greville Mee, in 1952 to teach art in the British school of São Paulo. Her first expedition was in 1956 to Belém in the Amazon Basin. She then became a botanical artist for São Paulo's Instituto de Botanica in 1958, exploring the rainforest and more specifically Amazonas state from 1964, painting the plants she saw, some new to science, as well as collecting some for later illustration. She created 400 folios of gouache illustrations, 40 sketchbooks, and 15 diaries."--Amazon.com.

"Flowers of the Amazon Forests: The Botanical Art of Margaret Mee illustrates sixty of her major works with additional sketches painted whilst in the immense, yet vulnerable, rainforests of the Amazon. The accompanying text, taken from the travel diaries she kept during her extensive - and often solo - adventures through Amazonas, recounts her comments on the flowers, trees, birds and animals of the region as well as her thoughts on the rapidly disappearing Brazilian forest, thus setting in context her botanical illustrations." --Book Jacket.

"Flowers of the Amazon Forests: The Botanical Art of Margaret Mee illustrates sixty of her major works with additional sketches painted whilst in the immense, yet vulnerable, rainforests of the Amazon. The accompanying text, taken from the travel diaries she kept during her extensive - and often solo - adventures through Amazonas, recounts her comments on the flowers, trees, birds and animals of the region as well as her thoughts on the rapidly disappearing Brazilian forest, thus setting in context her botanical illustrations." --Book Jacket.

Seeds of Amazonian Plants is the first field guide to treat the extraordinary diversity of seeds and diaspores of plants commonly encountered in the Amazon and other lowland moist forests of the American tropics. This stunningly illustrated guide features an easy-to-use whole-plant approach to seed identification that provides detailed descriptions not only of the seeds but also of the habit, trunk, bark, leaves, infructescence, and fruit of Amazonian plants, as well as information about the known uses and distribution of each genus. Presenting these descriptions together with 750 full-color photos and a unique identification key, this premier field guide enables users to identify seeds of 544 genera and 131 families of plants. The most comprehensive field guide to Amazonian seeds Features 750 full-color photos that make identification easy Covers 544 genera and 131 families of Amazonian plants Describes seeds, habit, trunk, bark, leaves, infructescence, and fruit Includes unique seed identification key Compact, portable, and beautifully illustrated--the ideal field guide