First Keynote Speaker 2020
Max Licher: A Celebration of Floral Diversity in the Greater Sedona Area
Max will present an overview of the native botanical diversity found in and around Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon. He will discuss the various ecological components and biotic communities that give a meaningful context for the variety of native plants found in the area. Many of the common showy species that everyone should know will be covered. In addition, a number of lesser known yet beautiful native flowers will be also shown. The presentation will be fun, colorful, and interactive. His goal will be to inspire everyone to pay more attention to everything growing underfoot and all around us.
Anyone who has a native plant growing in their yard or neighborhood that they can’t figure out can bring a sprig for identification (hopefully) after the talk.
Max Licher is an architect with Design Group Architects and has been a resident of Sedona for 37 years. He has been involved as a community planning volunteer, working as an organizer of the original Sedona Forums, and most recently as a participant in the Traffic Matters Transit Planning efforts. He has had a lifelong interest in nature and has focused this interest primarily in the area of native plants.
After early training with Jean Searle and Norm Herkenham, he has gone on to document the native and naturalized flora of Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon and has made this work available on the SEINET website. He is also helping coordinate the Plant Atlas Project of Arizona (PAPAZ), which is training amateur botanists in collecting techniques and organizing documentation efforts in northern Arizona.
Max is an assistant curator at the Deaver Herbarium at NAU, and has recently co-authored with Glenn Rink new treatments for the genera Carex (sedges) and Juncus (rushes) as part of the ongoing Arizona Flora revision. In addition, he and his wife Clare have an interest in plant medicines, and distill essential oils from a number of our local native species. He received the Herkenham Award in 2011.