Maryrose Wampler, an acclaimed botanical artist, was born in a log cabin on the Wabash River near New Harmony, Indiana, on November 5, 1937. She was a graduate of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, and lived in Bloomington for the rest of her life. Ms. Wampler developed her career initially in the late 1960s with Kaye Poole (1912-2006) in Nashville, Indiana, with landscape paintings in oils. She then began to develop a watercolor technique that enabled unusual color intensity and detail. In 1974 she won the coveted National Flower Competition, and painted for Nature House Inc. until the early 1980s. During this time she became well known as a watercolor artist for her paintings and lithographs that depicted wildflowers characteristic of places across the United States. From the 1980s she began working on books of paintings of wildflowers and trees seen in Indiana, with text describing the plants and habitats written by her husband Fred. "Wildflowers of Indiana" was published by IU Press in 1988, and "Trees of Indiana" followed in 2000. Lithographs of her wildflowers are a common sight across the Midwest, appearing in homes and public spaces from McDonald's restaurants to museums.