Byron Bay - the pearl of the New South Wales Northern Rivers, nestled beside pristine beaches and fringed by verdant rainforest. Mary Gardner walks, snorkels and dreams amid the natural beauties that make this region unique. ."Plant a tree grow a fish" heralds a new style of nature writing, unapologetically fashioning poetry, science, history and observation into a glittering mosaic. More than a field guide, Mary has written a love story from her marine ecologist's perspective. This book is for anyone whose imagination and curiosity are piqued by Byron Bay's treasury of coastal and hinterland riches. Creatures from anemones to sand bubbler crabs, platypuses to brush turkeys, whales to plankton are examined and celebrated. Landscape and flora are gloriously revealed, from the tiniest native orchid to the ubiquitous casuarinas to the fragile wallum heath lands. Overall looms the threat of unsustainable, rapacious development and a ticking clock, urging the need to act now, before all is lost.