Jason Richard Swallen (May 1, 1903 -April 22, 1991) was an American

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

specializing in grasses.Jason Swallen
/ref> Born in

Alliance, Ohio Alliance is a city in eastern Stark County, Ohio, United States. With a small district lying in adjacent Mahoning County, the city is approximately northeast of Canton, southwest of Youngstown and southeast of Cleveland. The population was 21 ...

, Swallen graduated from

Ohio Wesleyan University Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) is a private liberal arts college in Delaware, Ohio. It was founded in 1842 by methodist leaders and Central Ohio residents as a nonsectarian institution, and is a member of the Ohio Five – a consortium ...

(AB 1924) and Kansas State Agricultural College (MS 1925). He spent two summers at the Michigan University Biological Station, then in 1925, he started as a botanist at the US Department of Agriculture, serving under the USDA's chief agrostologist

A. S. Hitchcock Albert Spear Hitchcock (September 4, 1865 – December 16, 1935) was an American botanist and agrostologist. Hitchcock graduated from the Iowa Agricultural College with bachelor's degree in 1884 and M.S. in 1886. From 1892 to 1901 he was a prof ...

and after Hitchcock's sudden death in 1935, Agnes Chase. Swallen practiced botany in California in 1927, and from the southwest United States to Yucatan, Mexico, in 1928, 1931 and 1932. In 1936, he published on the grasses of Honduras and Peten, Guatemala, and was promoted to associate botanist. From 1943 to 1945, he served in Brazil as agricultural production officer in the US Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. In 1947, he became the curator of the Division of Grasses at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

and chaired the Botany Department from 1950 until his retirement in 1965. In retirement he lived in Florida, Maryland, and Ohio. In 1954 he was awarded an honorary DSc degree by Ohio Wesleyan University. With Leona Winifred Smith, whom he married on June 10, 1929, he had one daughter, Ester. He was married a second time, to Clara Bayne Brasel, a 1941 Graduate of George Washington University and a Secretary at the Smithsonian, on August 28, 1955. The genus ''

Swallenia ''Swallenia'' is a rare genus of plants in the grass family, found only in Death Valley National Park, California. The only known species is ''Swallenia alexandrae'', known by the common names Eureka dunegrass and Eureka Valley dune grass. This ...

'' for Eureka Valley Dune Grass, endemic to Inyo County, California, commemorates his name.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swallen, Jason Richard Agrostologists 1903 births 1991 deaths American taxonomists Botanists active in California Botanists active in Central America United States Department of Agriculture people Smithsonian Institution people 20th-century American botanists