Biography
As a conservation botanist and voice for native plants Michael has devoted his career to the conservation of native plants and habitats in Texas and beyond. For just over a decade, he managed projects such as the Millennium Seed Bank project, Floristic Survey of Big Bend National Park, Ferns of the Trans-Pecos, and a Review of the Aquatic Invasives of Texas, while working for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. He currently heads the Rare Plant and Conservation programs at San Antonio Botanical Garden, a position he has held for the past five years. Additionally, through his botanical consulting business, Texas Flora, he designs and installs native plant gardens, and performs a variety of plant surveys on both public and private lands, including rare plant surveys, plant inventories, wetland delineation, and ecological assessments. Most recently he worked with a team performing accuracy assessments in Death Valley National Park, Mojave NP, and Big Bend NP. In 2018 he published the field guide, Wildflowers of Texas, and is currently working on several other book projects including Wildflowers and other Plants of Western Texas – a field guide, Naturalized and Invasive Species of Texas, and Native and Naturalized Fabaceae of Texas. Michael has served on the Executive Board of the Native Plant Society of Texas (NPSOT) from 2017 to 2021, is currently the State Botanist for the organization, and is a member of the Big Bend Chapter of NPSOT.