Peter René Oscar Bally

Peter René Oscar Bally (9 May 1895, in Schönenwerd, Switzerland – 26 July 1980, in Nairobi) was a Swiss botanical illustrator, botanist and taxonomist.

[2] Peter Bally received formal training in neither taxonomy nor botanical illustration, but studied chemistry at first, a position with the League of Nations taking him to Albania and Bombay in 1923/24 in order to test a possible antidote for malaria.

He bought a small piece of land on the outskirts of the town and busied himself with constructing a house and establishing a garden of indigenous plants.

By 1943 he undertook botanising expeditions to Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia Ghana, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

He described numerous species in the genera Aloe, Caralluma, Ceropegia, Echidnopsis, Euphorbia, Monadenium, Pseudolithos, Rhytidocaulon, Sansevieria, Senecio and Stapelia.