Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 16. September, 1914. No. 189. 
MARIA L. OWEN. 
WALTER DEANE. 
(With portrait.) 
ANOTHER botanist long associated with the study of New England 
plants has passed away, and we mourn the loss of one always keenly 
devoted to her favorite pursuit and a painstaking student of the 
Nantucket flora. Those of us who were privileged to enjoy her warm 
friendship will always miss her kindly words and enthusiastic corre- 
spondence. Yet we must be grateful that this friend and fellow stu- 
dent reached a ripe old age and enjoyed to the last good health, while 
she made her valuable contributions on the New England flora. 
Mrs. Maria L. Owen, as the botanical world always knew her, died 
in Plandome, Long Island, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. James 
Sullivan, on June 8, 1913, at the advanced age of eighty-eight years. 
She was born on the Island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, on February 
13, 1825. Her full name was Maria Louise Tallant,! and she was the 
daughter of Eben Weld Tallant and Nancy Coffin. Through her 
father she was descended from Hugh Tallant, the early New England 
settler from Ireland, mentioned by Whittier in the “Sycamores,” 
and from the prominent Weld family of Roxbury, Massachusetts. 
Through her mother she traced her descent from Tristram Coffin 
and others of the early settlers of Nantucket. 
Through the maternal branch of her grandfather Coffin, Mrs. Owen 
1 Miss Helen A. Gardner writes me from Nantucket under date of August 1, 1914; 
“The only record of Mrs. Owen's full name is a copy of The Census of 1830. There 
itis given Maria Louise Tallant. Age5 years." Mrs. Henry P. Tallant writes that 
Mrs. Owen always spelled her middle name Louisa. 
