Species Kirkia glauca

For John Kirk (1832–1922), Scottish explorer, naturalist, physician and diplomat. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh (1847–1854), served with civil medical staff during the Crimean war and joined David Livingstone’s second expedition (1858) but returned to Britain in 1863 because of ill health. In 1866 he returned to Zanzibar and became consul general and acting surgeon in 1873. He played a major role in securing the abolition of slavery from Sultan Seyyid Bargash and negotiated a lease of territory that led to the founding of British East Africa. He was very interested in the practical and pharmaceutical uses of plants, wrote a revision of economically important East African palms, and had a substantial collection of non-marine molluscs.