Margaret Stones

Margaret Stones (1920-) is one of Australia’s most prominent botanical artists, and was the principal illustrator for William Curtis's Botanical Magazine for over twenty-five years, having succeeded Lilian Snelling. Stones produced some 400 watercolors for the magazine during this time, in addition to the over 250 drawings she did for The Endemic Flora of Tasmania (published in six volumes between 1967-78) and the Flora of Louisiana (1977-87).

In 1976, Stones was awarded the Veitch Silver Medal by the Royal Horticultural Society in London, and in 1986 she received the Veitch Gold Medal for "outstanding contribution to botany and plant conservation."

"Commenting on Margaret Stones’s botanical knowledge and experience, Tasmanian botanist Dr. Winifrid Curtis ‘recalled that Stones never needed to be told, but invariably knew, which sections to draw in order to facilitate correct taxonomical classification.’" — Irena Zdanowicz, Beauty in Truth (1996).