Born in Schönenwerd, Switzerland on 9 May 1895, Peter Bally became a self-taught taxonomic botanist and botanical illustrator. Peter studied chemistry in his early years that took him to Albania and Bombay in 1923 and 1924 testing an antidote for malaria for the League of Nations. By 1930, working for an oil company as a chemist in Tanzania, he studied medicinal and poisonous plants of the region.
His interest in botany took him to study plants (especially succulent plants) in arid areas of eastern Africa and by 1938 became a government botanist at the herbarium of the Coryndon Museum in Nairobi, Kenya Purchasing a sloping 3ó acres of virgin bushland on the outskirts of Nairobi, Peter cleared the land, built a home and then planted a garden with seedlings and cuttings of plants from tiny herbs to big trees he collected in the wild — all plants indigenous to East Africa.
By 1943 he took longer expeditions through Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. On one of these expeditions with Dr Gilbert Westacott Reynolds (1895–1967) they searched for Aloes that Dr Reynolds needed for the preparation of his book ‘The Aloes of Tropical Africa’.
In 1957 Peter returned to Europe, working a short time with the Marnier-Lapostolle collection at the Jardin Botanique Lès Cedres botanical garden in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France, and then for a period of 12 years at the Conservatoire et Jardin Botanique, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Back to Nairobi, Kenya in 1969 Peter was able to pursue his many botanical interests at his leisure, visiting the herbarium (now East African Herbarium, Nairobi holding more than 700,000 plant specimens and accompanying field notes) almost daily for the rest of his life.
Of interest to succulent plant enthusiasts is Peter Bally’s discovery of a number of species of Aloe, Euphorbia and a few other species. Species named in his honor are: Adenia ballyi, Aloe ballyi, Ceropegia ballyana, Euphorbia ballyana, E. ballyi, E. proballyana, Kalanchoe ballyi, Sansevieria ballyi and Stapeliopsis (Echidnopsis) ballyi. He described many more species under the generic names Aloe, Caralluma, Ceropegia, Echidnopsis, Euphorbia (many), Lithocaulon, Monadenium (many), Pseudolithos,
Rhytidocaulon, Sansevieria, Senecio and Stapelia. He collected succulent plants in little known areas of Kenya, Tanzania, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Madagascar, Ghana and Nigeria.
Peter Bally is the author, artist and illustrator of the 1961 book ‘The Genus Monadenium (A Monographic Study)’, the results of 27 years of study after his first discovery of an undescribed Monadenium in 1934 (M. schubei var formosum described by him in 1959). His drawings and watercolor paintings also appear in Flowering Plants of Africa—a botanical magazine/journal (from 1921) published by the South African National Biodiversity Institute in Pretoria, South Africa.
Peter was a leading authority on succulent plants of east and northeast Africa — a specialist in families Euphorbiaceae and Stapelieae. He wrote numerous articles for various journals of the world. The journal ‘Ballya’ was named in his honor, a publication of the East African Natural Historical Society in Nairobi, Kenya. He joined the International Organization for Succulent Plant Study (IOS) in 1953, three years after its inception. He received the prestigious CSSA Fellow award in 1975 for dedicated scholar of African succulents, who worked toward conservation of endangered species and author of a monographic study of the genus Monadenium.
Peter received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Basel, Switzerland in 1973. Dr Peter René Oscar Bally died in Nairobi on 26 July 1980 after a short illness following a heart attack.
References
Taylor G. 1961. Foreword. The Genus Monadenium. 7.
Glass CE. 1980. Peter R. O. Bally. Cact Succ J (US) 52: 228.
Hunt DR. 1980. In Memoriam: Peter Bally. Cact Succ J Great Brit 42: 61.
Carter S. 1981. Dr. P. R. O. Bally. Cact Succ J (US) 53: 55.
Newton LE. 1991. Peter Bally and the Joy Adamson Story. Cact Succ J (US) 63: 244–245.
Carter S. 1991. Peter Bally and the Spiny Euphorbias—Euphorbias from East Africa, Part 7. Euphorbia J 7: 46–59.
Carter S. 1992. The Bally–Carter Collaboration: Euphorbias from East Africa, Part 8. Euphorbia J 8: 60–71.
Rowley GD. 1997. A History of Succulent Plants (Succulentist Biofile). 356.
Dorr LJ. 1997. Plant Collectors in Madagascar and Comoro Islands. 22–23.
Newton LE. 1999. Peter Bally and his Succulent Plant Legacy. 30p.
Eggli U, Newton LE. 2004. Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names. 21, 191.
Figueiredo E, Smith GF. 2010. What’s in a name: epithets in Aloe L. (Asphodelaceae) and what to call the next new species. Bradleya 28: 95.
Walker CC. 2010. Gilbert Westacott Reynolds: his study of Aloe and a bibliography of his work. Bradleya 28: 113–114.
Grace OM, Klopper RR, Figueiredo E, Smith GF. 2011. The Aloe Names Book. 18.
Staples CJ. 2011. Little Bits of People History #5. Cact Succ J (US) 83: 117.
Staples CJ. 2013. A Historical Record of Authors of C&S Plant Names & Books for the Amateur Hobbyist. Vol 1: 34–37.
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This article is from a collection of biographies written by CSSA Historian Chuck Staples for the CSSA Archives.
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