Mark Wayne Chase (born 1951) is a US-born British botanist. He is noted for work in plant classification and evolution, and one of the instigators of the

Angiosperm Phylogeny Group The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) is an informal international group of systematic botanists who collaborate to establish a consensus on the taxonomy of flowering plants (angiosperms) that reflects new knowledge about plant relationships disc ...

-classification for flowering plants which is partly based on DNA studies. In particular he has researched

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan plants that are found in almost every habitat on Eart ...

s, and currently investigates ploidy and hybridization in ''

Nicotiana ''Nicotiana'' () is a genus of herbaceous plants and shrubs in the Family (biology), family Solanaceae, that is Native plant, indigenous to the Americas, Australia, Southwestern Africa and the South Pacific. Various ''Nicotiana'' species, common ...

''. In 1984, he received 'The George H.M. Lawrence Memorial Award', in the amount of $2,000, presented by the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation,

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

and presented at the annual banquet of the Botanical Society of America. In 1998 he shared the Linnean Medal with Colin Patterson. In 2008 he was one of thirteen recipients of the Darwin-Wallace Medal, which was given every 50 years by the

Linnean Society of London The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript a ...

. He was the Keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory; he is now retired but still an honorary research associate at the

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,10 ...

. He is a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. He was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal of the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr ...

in 2014.

Selected publications

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Taxa named by Mark Chase

See Taxa named by Mark Wayne Chase.

References

1951 births Living people British botanists Veitch Memorial Medal recipients Fellows of the Royal Society Botanists active in Kew Gardens Fellows of the Linnean Society of London {{UK-scientist-stub