Maria Hitchcock
Maria Hitchcock has been an active environmentalist and member of the Australian Plants Society for over 40 years and was made a Life Member 17 years ago. She was Leader of the Correa Study Group for 16 years from 1991 to 2007 and is considered to be the international authority on the Genus. As a result Maria has given many presentations on the genus at Australian Plant Conferences, contributed sections on Correas and on Wattles for complete editions of 'Australian Plants' and contributed to the research by collaborating with botanists. Maria has travelled widely throughout Australia collecting, photographing and recording all the wild forms of Correas and holds an official living collection in her garden. She has also collected for Mt Annan Botanic Gardens and the Australian National Botanic Gardens on those trips.
Maria is also known as the 'Wattle Lady' in Australia, a title given to her by Ian McNamara of the ABC Radio program 'Australia All Over'. This was as a result of her success in having the Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha) gazetted as Australia's National Floral Emblem in 1988 and National Wattle Day (September 1) in 1992. Maria's book entitled Wattle was published by the Australian Government Publishing Service in 1991. As a result Maria is well known in native garden circles around Australia.
As a member of the Australian Plants Society Maria has co-authored and coordinated their local publication Australian Plants for the Northern Tablelands of NSW. Maria's latest book Correas: Australian Plants for Waterwise Gardens will be published by Rosenberg Publishing in October 2010.
