Alice Lounsberry

Lounsberry's love for flowers and plants began as a young girl, likely from exploring the gardens around New York City where she lived.

The two women made a great team: “Lounsberry provided detailed botanical structure along with engaging observations of her subjects and their natural history, while Rowan’s artwork found a new audience.

According to Samuel (1961), it was while in Asheville that Rowan received news that her son Eric (called "Puck") had been killed in South Africa.

Regarding her travels with Rowan in the American South, Lounsberry wrote: "To learn something of the history, the folklore and the uses of southern plants and to see rare ones growing in their natural surroundings, Mrs. Rowan and I traveled in many parts of the south, exercising always our best blandishments to get the people of the section to talk with us.

[1] Their three works together were unique in the world of botanical writing: the books were formatted as a biological field guide, organized by the habitat in which the plant species lived.