Michael Powell PhD, Shirley Powell, and Richard Worthington PhD Receive 5th Award
The authors of The Flowering Plants of the Trans-Pecos and Adjacent Areas have been awarded the 2020 Correll Award by the Native Plant Society of Texas. This is the fifth Correll Award Dr. Powell has received for his collection of work, including books on the trees and shrubs, cacti, grasses, and ferns of this region. Dr. Powell, his field assistant of 46 years, Shirley Powell, and numerous others spent 20 years accumulating the information and photographs that became The Flowering Plants… and the enormity of the undertaking is evident in the heft of the book alone.
The biologically diverse Trans-Pecos covers an area about the size of South Carolina and includes the mountains and deserts found west of the Pecos River in the northern Chihuahuan Desert region. Almost 45% of the plants known in the state of Texas are found in the Trans-Pecos and over 2000 flowering species of these plants are treated in this book.
The authors of the book compiled a great deal of information utilizing the plant specimens housed in Room 103 of the Warnock Science Building – the A. Michael Powell Herbarium. This herbarium was initially developed in 1927 with around 400 plant specimens and now houses over 100,000 and occupies an entire wing of the basement. This collection of plant specimens at SRSU, which focuses on the flora of the Trans-Pecos, is uniquely organized geographically as an incredible boon to anyone exploring its cabinets of pressed plants. The herbarium is an incredible regional resource that is available to and utilized by researchers all over the world across a wide range of disciplines. This collection, which is curated by Dr. Powell, is also a valuable teaching resource for undergraduate and graduate students and any professors dealing with the natural sciences.
Sul Ross extend congratulations to Dr. Powell, Shirley Powell, Dr. Worthington, and all who worked so hard to put this impressive work together. Their time and dedication to their craft represents to passion so akin to this region. Furthermore, receiving recognition 5 times over is something to be celebrated.
