The lounge room walls of respected eco and nature author, Mary E White's residence at Falls Forest Retreat, Johns River, NSW give an indication of her early life in Africa but demonstrate her enduring love of Australia. br/Mary White came to Australia in 1955, at the age of 24, as a young botanist. Remarkably it was not until the death of her husband and at the age of 60 that she began writing the first of her many landmark books about nature, the earth and the origins of our world.