Both Clementses were involved with the study of phytogeography, especially those factors determining the ecology of vegetation in particular regions, and they would be praised as "the most illustrious husband-wife team since the Curies.

During this period, she met her future husband, Frederic Clements, a UNL botany professor who influenced the direction of her graduate studies.

At the time, the Universities of Nebraska and Minnesota (where she would later teach) were centers for the study of phytogeography—the geographic distribution of plant species—and she chose to make this her area of specialization.

A few years later, they assembled another exsiccata collection featuring some 615 specimens of cryptogams; this set was later (1972) issued in print form by the New York Botanical Garden.

[5][12] Throughout this period, their summers were spent at a botanical station they developed as a test site for plant acclimatization, Alpine Laboratory at Pikes Peak, Colorado.

[5] During the Dust Bowl years, Clements and Frederic drove around the Great Plains and Southwest, helping to encourage conservation measures to counter the destructive loss of farm and range land.

"[5] It is extremely revealing in showing how many jobs Clements undertook in support of the couple's joint expeditions, ranging from chauffeur, mechanic, cook, and stenographer to photographer, artist, and botanist.

[2] Clements's wry style is evident in this account of the departure of one expedition: Friendly neighbors stood around, offering advice, warnings and gloomy prophecies as well as bets on the impossibility of finding space in one car for the appalling number of things that seemed to be absolutely indispensable for the venture.

[1] In addition, the University of Nebraska has digitized a small collection of letters written by Clements to her family about a 1911 trip she and Frederic took to Europe to participate in an international meeting of botanists and ecologists.