The Governor of South Australia, Sir Robert George, unveils the National Trust plaque on Watiparinga Reserve, watched by the donor of the property Miss Alison Ashby. Photo: The Advertiser, 21 May 1959, SLSA +70984/76.

The well known botanist and conservationist Enid Robertson passed away last year.  To commemorate her life and her dedication to the restoration and care of Watiparinga Reserve a new plaque will be unveiled this month, commemorating Enid and her aunt Alison Ashby.

The land, once part of the Ashby family’s Wittunga farm, was gifted to the National Trust by Alison Ashby in 1957. Watiparinga’s greybox grassy woodland provides an essential haven for rare and threatened plants and animals. Elsewhere, this habitat has largely been built over with housing and roads. A detailed booklet on this ecological community has been published by the Federal environment department (14.2mb PDF) a few years ago.

If you want to know more about Enid Robertson and her work, have a look at the transcript of an interview (1.2mb PDF) with her from the State Library of South Australia‘s oral history collection. Another family connection: her father Keith Ashby donated part of the family property to the Board of the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium in 1965, which later became Wittunga Botanic Gardens.