The Useful Native Plants of Australia maps a continent's living resources with scholarly exactness and plain usefulness. A practical, historical field manual. Compiled by H. J. Maiden, this authoritative survey functions as an Australian plant identification guide and a native flora reference, blending taxonomic care with plainly stated notes on edible Australian plants, medicinal native plants and bush food plants. Entries favour clarity over jargon, giving identification cues, habitat notes and reports of human use, making the volume equally at home as a botanical field manual or a field research collection for botanists and gardeners. Readers benefit whether they seek immediate help spotting a species on a walk, or reliable background for research: the language is accessible, the observations direct and quietly exact. Rooted in nineteenth-century Australia, Maiden's work occupies a notable place in Australian botany anthology, notable for recording traditional uses and early colonial observation while mapping flora across regions that include Tasmanian native species. Casual readers will savour the plain descriptions and the human connections to place; classic-literature collectors will prize the book's historical texture and its evidence of a moment when exploration, settlement and scientific recording converged. Republished by Alpha Editions in a careful modern edition, this volume preserves the spirit of the original while making it effortless to enjoy today - a heritage title prepared for readers and collectors alike. Whether used as an Australian plant identification guide on a bush walk, consulted within a field research collection, or read simply for the pleasure of nineteenth-century Australia's natural history, Maiden's compilation links practical know-how with disciplined observation. From quick identification cues to notes on edible Australian plants and medicinal native plants, it serves both the practising botanist and the home gardener, and also backyard gardeners, while offering collectors a richly textured record of the useful plants of Australia and a lasting piece of the nation's scientific heritage.