Anton G. Endress is a retired plant scientist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois. He holds a B.S. in biology from Duquesne University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in botany from the University of Iowa, where he specialized in mycology and ultrastructural cytology.His four-decade career moved from air pollution research — first on plant secretory glands, then on rocket exhaust and other pollutants at UC Riverside's Statewide Air Pollution Research Center — to the study of invasive plants and the ecological restoration of tallgrass prairie, wetlands, and woodlands. Along the way he served as Head of the University of Illinois' Department of Horticulture and published more than one hundred refereed papers. After retiring to southern California in 2011, he helped found Tree San Diego and the San Diego Green Infrastructure Consortium, both dedicated to advancing nature-based solutions at the scale of neighborhoods and watersheds.

He is the author of Next to Nature Gardening, and is currently writing a book about green water and the slow unraveling of the American Southwest's desert ecosystems. Born in Idaho and raised on a Pennsylvania dairy farm, he now farmsteads in Oregon's Willamette Valley with his wife. Their two sons are grown.