| Maria Tallant Owen | |
| Birth Name: | Maria Tallant |
| Birth Date: | February 13, 1825 |
| Birth Place: | Nantucket, Massachusetts |
| Death Date: | June 8, 1913 |
| Death Place: | Plandome, New York |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Botanist |
| Spouse: | Varillas L. Owen |
| Children: | Walter (son), Amelia (daughter) |
Maria Tallant Owen (February 13, 1825 - June 8, 1913) was an American botanist who compiled a detailed record of 19th century flora and algae on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts.[1]
Born Maria Tallant in Nantucket, she grew up in a wealthy family and was descended from some of the earliest white settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. She studied at private institutions on the island and studied botany at home with her mother and sisters, who were also avid collectors.[2] She taught at the Perkins School for the Blind and Nantucket High School in the 1840s, and also taught at her own private school.[3]
Owen moved to Springfield, Massachusetts in 1853, shortly after her marriage to Dr. Varillas L. Owen who was a Harvard-trained physician. The couple had two children, Walter and Amelia.[4]
In Springfield, she contributed to scientific societies and taught science and French. Owen's most significant work, published in 1888, was a record of flora in pre-1853 Nantucket County that included 787 species and is a useful record for modern scientists studying the effects of climate change on plants. On her European excursions, Owen expanded her botanical collections to include specimens she found there.
According to Smith, Owen is quoted as saying, "I owe half the happiness of my life directly, and most of the other half indirectly, to the study of botany..."
Owen was instrumental in the founding of two botanical societies, the Connecticut Valley Botanical Society and the Springfield Botanical Society. She helped organize the first in 1873 and served as its secretary. The group remained viable for about 25 years, and held its first annual meeting in Amherst, Massachusetts on October 1, 1873. The Springfield Botanical Society was established in 1877 and consisted of weekly meetings with members contributing specimens from near and far for their own herbarium. Owen was president of this group for many years and known as its honorary president until she died.
Owen continued her botanical research until 1912, a year before her death. She died at her daughter's home in Plandome, on Long Island in New York.