Member of the Order of Canada

• Awarded on: December 14, 1981
• Invested on: April 21, 1982

Born in Czechoslovakia, and educated there and in other countries, he was a Resistance leader during the Second World War, narrowly escaping death in a concentration camp. He became a professor of botany at the University of Prague, but on the communist accession emigrated to Vancouver. As Professor of Forestry at the University of British Columbia, and through his writing and research, he has contributed notably to the knowledge of plant and forest ecology.