With great love and care a very informative little book of 84 pages on wild flowers in the Sperrgebiet was put together by scientist, author and illustrator Dr Antje Burke and presented to the public this week. The exceptionally good photographs of the amazing variety of plants with often beautiful flowers, concise descriptions of their habitat and grouping the plants into succulents, shrubs, bulbs, herbs and grasses makes the information equally interesting to the scientist and amateur botanist. Dr Burke hails from Germany where she studied landscape ecology. She worked at Gobabeb research station and lectured botany at UNAM. She now runs her own environmental consultancy. The publication of her book "Wild Flowers of the Sperrgebiet" received substantial funding from Namdeb. It is available in leading bookshops or directly at the offices of the publisher, the Namibia Scientific Society. A German edition is available in 4 weeks. The photo shows Dr Burke (centre) with Mr Rob Smart, general manager of Namdeb, who officially launched the book, and Mr Helmut zur Strassen of the NSS. Photo: Brigitte Weidlich