Ukrainian ecologist from Odessa who trained at the University of Jena (1915-1917), then at the University of Dorpat (1918) under Peter Claussen, before returning to the University of Jena (Dr.Phil. 1919) as a student of C.E. Stahl . He was employed as an assistant at the Agrigultural Laboratory in Halle (1920), then at the University of Heidelburg (1923) where he was later appointed professor (1927). He was awarded a Rockefeller grant to study vegetation in the United States (1929-1930) with Forrest Shreve in Tucson, Arizona and with also the plant ecologist J.E. Weaver in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1924 he married Erna Schenck, the daughter of botanist J.H.R. Schenck. He was later appointed professor of botany in Stuttgart at the Botanischen Institut und Gartens der Technischen Hochschule (later the University of Stuttgart) and subsequently became the director of the botanical institute and gardens (1939). He visited S.W. Africa (Namibia) in 1935, 1937-1938, and later in 1952-1953, making plant collections together with his wife, and was instrumental in the establishment of the herbarium in Windhoek. In 1941 he was professor of botany at the University of Posen and finally accepted the chair of botany at the Agricultural College of Stuttgart-Hohenheim (1945-1966), until his retirement when he became emeritus professor. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Ankara, Turkey (1951-1955).