Margaret Stones

Who is Margaret Stones?

Elsie Margaret Stones AM, MBE is an Australian botanical illustrator. Stones worked as principal contributing artist to Curtis's Botanical Magazine from 1950 to 1951. Between 1958 and 1983 she had produced more than 400 watercolor drawings for the magazine.

In 1957 she was commissioned to prepare a set of floral designs for Australian postage stamps.

Stones worked closely with Winifred Curtis between 1967 and 1978 in providing the illustrations for The Endemic Flora of Tasmania.

In 1976, Stones was commissioned to create a series of six watercolors as part of Louisiana State University's celebration of the American bicentennial. The project's scope was soon expanded, and over the next fourteen years, Stones and a team of LSU botanists traveled throughout the state gathering plant specimens. She eventually completed more than 200 drawings, which were published by the LSU Press in 1991 as Flora of Louisiana. The original drawings, as well as selected working drawings, are now held in the LSU Libraries Special Collections in Hill Memorial Library.

Stones has two genera named after her, Stonesia and Stonesiella.