Balls, Edward Kent
Usage Conditions Apply
The Smithsonian Institution Archives welcomes personal and educational use of its collections unless otherwise noted. For commercial uses, please contact photos@si.edu.Biographical History
Edward Kent Balls (1892-1984) was an English horticulturist and collector of living wild plants. He was born in Moreton, Essex. He started off as a draper and then volunteered for war relief work with the Quakers in 1914. He spent eleven years abroad with that work. He returned to England and started in 1926 as a gardener at Clarence Elliott's Six Hills Nursery near Stevenage. He did collecting trips to Persia and spent over four months exploring the country's mountains. He also made trips to Turkey between 1933 and 1935, collecting specimens for private subscribers and museum herbaria. He made a trip to Morocco in 1936, and was able to collect several alpine species, including gentians, narcissi and fritillaries. He continued to travel to different parts of the world, and went to the United States to do a year-long lecture tour. After, he worked for British government agencies in New York and Washington during World War II. After the war he went back to relief work in Yugoslavia and China. Two years later he took work at Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden in California until his retirement in 1960. He returned back to England in Yorkshire. He died in 1984.
Source
Harvard University Herbarium Index of Botanists. ASA Botanist ID: 110887 botanist. Retrieved March 2012.
Related entities
Rancho Santa Ana botanic garden: He worked at Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden.
Birth Date
1892
Death Date
1984
Topic
Botany
Form/Genre
Personal name
Occupation
Botanists