Chase, Mary Agnes (1869–1963)

US botanist and suffragist who made outstanding contributions to the study of grasses. During the course of several research expeditions she collected many plants previously unknown to science, and her work provided much information about naturally occuring cereals and other food crops.

Meara was born in Iroquois County, Illinois, and was self-educated. From 1903 she worked in Washington, DC, for the US Department of Agriculture Bureau of Plant Industry and Exploration, and became the principal scientist for agrostology (study of grasses). She was politically active in various reform movements, especially those for female suffrage, and on this account was jailed and forcibly fed during World War I.

Chase was responsible for work in modernizing and extending the national grass herbarium. She travelled widely, collecting plants from several regions of North and South America, and also visiting European research institutes and herbaria during the 1920s. Altogether she collected more than 12,000 plants for the herbarium.

Chase's publications include the authoritative Manual of the Grasses of the United States 1950.