Peak Botany

By Texas Tech University

October 25^th, 2023

I am driving behind Dylan Schwilk as he passes heavy equipment with a trailer full of research gear on the highway. The irony that we are driving this stretch of a heavily trafficked New Mexico highway to get to one of the most remote parts of Texas is not lost on us.

I met this crew of botanists earlier that morning in a parking lot on Texas Tech’s campus to caravan to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The trip is led by Matt Johnson, who runs Texas Tech’s herbarium. He, along with fellow Texas Tech professors Schwilk and Nick Smith, are taking a group of undergraduate and graduate students to the park to collect plant specimens and continue work started by another Tech professor and his student in the 1970s.

Past Carlsbad the traffic thins considerably as we make our way back into Texas. Pine Springs Campground will be basecamp for the next few days. Students disperse and collect specimens around the camp before dinner to get some practice in pressing, labeling and identifying plants before the real work starts.

The Peak

31.8912° N, 104.8605° W

The next morning, I wake up just before sunrise after a surprisingly comfortable night spent in the back seat of my truck. As I am making coffee, Smith comes back from his morning run and is already excited for the hike ahead. The plan for today is to climb to Guadalupe Peak, the tallest mountain in Texas, to collect samples, adding more from the trail on the way back down. Roundtrip to the peak and back is about eight miles and roughly 3,000 feet of elevation gain.

The group loads up on food, water, sunscreen, plant presses, notebooks and coolers for specimens that won’t be pressed as we gear up and head for the peak. On the trail the group stretches out. Schwilk and I end up hiking together for most of the way up, with him pointing out when the plants start to change as we gain in elevation. After several hours of hiking, we top out at the peak.

The group ahead of us had already begun their work, identifying plants from a target list to collect and selecting an ideal specimen. Once it is out of the ground they label the plant, record it in a notebook for the location and press it or put it in a cooler. The list was created by Madison Bullock, a doctoral student whose research centers around the plant life in the biologically isolated park. Once the group is satisfied with the collection we start the hike down, stopping periodically to collect more plants at different elevations along the trail. After 10 hours total of hiking, we are back at camp.

The work isn’t over though. The work continues well after dark to properly identify what they collected at the peak and along the trail. They also consolidate the pressed plants to have fresh presses ready for the following day

The Bowl

31.915746° N, 104.837024° W

After coffee and breakfast, we are ready to go again. This morning the group splits into high and low altitude groups. I head up to The Bowl with the high-altitude group. The Bowl is an area in the park across Pine Spring Canyon from Guadalupe Peak. This hike is about nine miles round trip but with slightly less elevation gain than the day before.

As we make our way up, we rest periodically. We are about halfway when I sit down on a rock and realize it feels sharper than normal. My favorite pair of pants quit on me. After a quick duct tape job, I’m back in business.

After a day and a half of collecting plants, the students have the process down. My botany lessons continue from the previous day, this time with Smith. With nearly identical plants he explains the process of looking at the differences in the flowers. If this process is too difficult in the field they make notes on the plant, label it, and finish the identification when they can work through the keys back at camp.

By the time we make it back down my tape job has failed, and my trusty pants find their way to the park dumpster.

Smith Spring

31.918499° N, 104.806693° W

In the third day I head out with Johnson’s low-elevation group to Smith Spring. Since there is not a peak or ridge to get to, the group collects plants as they go. Stopping periodically to spread out off the trail and press plants. After two days of hiking up to 8,000 feet the hike to the spring is relatively relaxing.

Back at camp, the work continued with students and professors identifying plants and preserving them to work on at the lab in Lubbock. This included imaging pieces of the plants on a scanner to be able to see the leaf mass/area ratio to study the resource use of the plants.

Back Home

All this work stems from earlier research housed in Texas Tech’s E.L. Reed Herbarium that was started in the 1970s by professor and herbarium director David Northington and master’s student Tony Burgess. Their collection from Guadalupe Mountains National Park gives Johnson and his students a unique opportunity. Through their modern collections from the park, they can look back at the data from 50 years ago and compare it to today, allowing them to study how the plants in the park responded to 50 years of environmental change. Johnson is also excited about the opportunities this affords his students. “My own passion for the environment and biodiversity research began with my first field work as an undergraduate; I am grateful we can pay that forward and show the next generation of students they can make an impact.”