Arthur Huber-Morath was a Swiss economist and botanist associated with the herbarium of the Basler Botanischen Gesellschaft (BAS) and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. His work concentrated on the flora of Turkey, where he mounted 16 expeditions between 1935 and 1969. His large collection of c.30,000 specimens, which contributed significantly to the Flora of Turkey project, is now deposited at the Conservatoire Botanique de Genève.
After studying economics in Bern, Huber-Morath went to work with a commercial company in Basel. Meanwhile he maintained a strong interest in botany and kept a private herbarium at his home in Salinenstrasse, Basel, where he lived for most of his life. The herbarium contained plants not only from Turkey but from earlier explorations in Switzerland, Italy, Tunisia, Spain and Morocco.
Huber-Morath's interest in Turkey was partly inspired by Heinrich Reese (1874-1951), with whom he collected in the country. He developed a special interest in the genera Verbascum, Achillea, Alkanna, Cousinia, Phlomis and Trigonella in Turkey, and contributed accounts for the Flora of Turkey, Flora Iranica and the Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie. P.H. Davis dedicated the fifth volume of the Flora of Turkey to him.
Active in taxonomic work, Huber-Morath described and classified more than 500 new plant taxa over the course of his career. Meanwhile, more than 20 species have been named in his honour with the epithet huber-morathii. He published itineraries of his travels in 1982 as "Reise durch Anatolien 1935-1969" (Bauhinia, 7(3): 167-176).
Sources:
A. Baytop, 2010, "Plant collectors in Anatolia (Turkey)", Phytologia Balcanica, 16(2): J. Renz, 1981, "Arthur Huber-Morath - zum 80. Geburgstag", Bauhinia, 7(2): 43
K. Tan and I. Hedge, 1991, ", Arthur Huber-Morath (1901–1990), OPTIMA Newsletter, 25-29: 61-62.