Edward Kent Balls (1892-1984), plant collector and horticulturist

Asuman Baytop

Edward Kent Balls (1892-1984) was an English horticulturist and a keen collector of living wild plants, hunting in foreign lands in order to introduce them to his country as garden ornamentals. He made three successive visits to Anatolia between 1933 and 1935, collecting from spring to autumn. He has been in Central Anatolia, central section of South Anatolia, the Cilician Taurus, west parts of East Anatolia, and in Northeast Anatolia. He was accompanied by the amateur botanist Dr.W.Balfour Gourlay in his fırst two trips, and by the zoologist Ch.Bird in the third. His highest specimen number in Flora of Turkey is 2403, in Plantae Turcicae 2392, and in his own article Plant collecting in Turkey in Asia 2409. Lanjouw et Stafleu write that the Kew Herbarium holds 2570 Anatolian specimens of Balls, and that the Herbarium of the University of Sciences of Ankara University keeps another 2000. They add that other herbaria are keeping Anatolian collections of his: A(115), B(90), BM, E, LAU, MO, S(328). The type specimens are distributed to E, K, BM, B and S. Balls has collected from Anatolia the type specimens of 19 new taxa. About half of them are described during the elaboration of P.H.Davis's Flora of Turkey project. Two are named after Balls: Verbascum ballsianum Murb. and Salvia ballsiana (Rech.fil.)Hedge.

Key words: E.K.Balls, flora of Turkey, collection, history of botany. Anahtar kelimeler: E.K.Balls, Türkiye florası, toplamalar, botanik tarihi.