FOUR GABLES PRESS is a small independent book publishing house in Kardinya in Perth, Western Australia. Established by Alex George in 2002, it specialises in botanical and local history titles. To email your order, please click on the ORDER link below the title.
Latest Releases
NEW RELEASE!
The Australian Botanical Liaison Officer Scheme at Kew, 1937–2009
$90.00 plus postage
Edited by Alex George
From 1937 to 2009 the Australian Federal, State and Territory Governments, jointly, stationed a succession of botanists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Their role was twofold: first, to service inquiries from Australia for information from the vast collections of plant specimens, literature and archives, information not readily accessible here but essential for research on the Australian flora; second, to conduct research on their own special areas of interest.
Fifty-two botanists spent terms averaging a year at Kew (one twice), with visits to other herbaria in Britain and on the Continent. The information gathered supported immeasurably the quality of thousands of scientific books and papers. Further, by updating the nomenclature on specimens (often unchanged since the 19th century), they improved the standard of collections both in the herbaria visited and in Australian herbaria. They formed associations with foreign botanists that often continued in their later careers.
Much history is bound up in the scheme, in the people who held the post, in the progress of Australian systematic botany, and in the progress of Kew itself.
The book contains an essay on the history of the scheme, and an essay on each person who held the post. It is illustrated with photographs of each ABLO, of staff at Kew, and of many aspects of Kew and other herbaria.
Publisher: Four Gables Press
Format: 362 pages, A4 landscape format (full colour interior)
ISBN 978-0-6456295-1-4
Published: 2023
ORDER
NEW RELEASE!
Peter Good
$55.00 plus postage
Peter Good was one of a remarkable team assembled by Joseph Banks for the voyage of HMS Investigator, captained by Matthew Flinders, to survey the coast of New Holland in 1801–03. It also included botanist Robert Brown, botanical artist Ferdinand Bauer and landscape artist William Westall. Good pursued his role as seed collector for the Royal Gardens at Kew with that keenness known to many who have the chance to explore unknown places. He kept a journal that complements those of Brown and Flinders, with lists of the seeds collected at each of the many landings. Sadly, he died in Sydney at the end of the circumnavigation, but his collections made it to Kew where they were recorded in the Gardens’ Inwards Book. All these are included in the present work, as well as records of the many plants thus introduced successfully into English horticulture.
Publisher: Four Gables Press
Format: 280 pages, 17.8 cm x 25 cm soft bound with French flaps (full colour plates)
ISBN 978-0-6456295-0-7
Published: 2022
ORDER
WA Plant Names and their Meanings – 4th edition (hard cover)
$48.00 plus postage
Discoveries in the State’s flora continue apace. This fourth edition of Western Australian Plant Names and Their Meanings explains the scientific names of all 12,800 native and naturalised plants in the State, including 200 found since the 3rd edition of 2019.
In total the book explains some 1643 generic names, 5735 specific and 892 infraspecific epithets. A feature is the inclusion of the genus for each specific name, or more when the same name has been used more than once. Extra drawings and new photographs have been added to this handsome hard cover edition of the book.
Alex George brings his experience in studying the flora over 65 years and his expertise in Latin to bear in explaining the names of plants of one the richest wildflower regions in the world.
Publisher: Four Gables Press
Format: 413 pages, 130 mm x 220 mm case bound (black and white interior)
ISBN 978-0-9580341-9-7
Published: 2021