Henri Lecomte

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Paul Henri Lecomte (1856-1934)

Paul Henri Lecomte (born January 8, 1856 in Saint-Nabord , Département Vosges , † June 12, 1934 in the 7th arrondissement , Paris ), often known as Henri Lecomte or Paul Lecomte , was a French botanist . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is "Lecomte" .

Life

Lecomte was the son of a farmer and grew up in the Vosges . In 1872 he began an assistant teacher training at the normal school , which he completed in 1876. Until 1877 he taught in the parishes of Xertigny , Épinal and Bruyères . After completing his baccalaureate degree, he completed the Lycées in Chaumont and Nancy and obtained a license in natural sciences in 1881 . In 1883 he graduated in physics and in 1884 he graduated from the Agrégé de sciences naturelles. He then taught at the Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris . Despite this considerable workload, he conducted research in the laboratory of Philippe Édouard Léon Van Tieghem at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle and received his doctorate in 1889 .

Lecomte completed numerous study trips or expeditions around the world, including the Congo , Gabon , Algeria , Tunisia , Egypt , the West Indies , Guyana , Japan , Java and Indochina . From 1902 to 1904 Lecomte took over the management of the colonial laboratory of the École pratique des hautes études in the absence of Auguste Jean Baptiste Chevalier . In 1904 he was responsible for teaching at the Lycées Saint-Louis and Henri IV in the classes in preparation for the Institut national agronomique in Paris, but this did not prevent him from working as a volunteer in the Jardin des Plantes .

In 1906 Lecomte succeeded Édouard Bureau as holder of the chair for phanerogame at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. In 1917 he was elected to the Académie des Sciences . In 1921 he was appointed officer of the Legion of Honor . Lecomte retired in 1931 and died in 1934 after a long and serious illness. He was unmarried.

Lecomte worked in the fields of systematic, anatomical, physiological or applied seed plant research and focused on the study of tropical flowering plants. In particular, he made an important contribution to the knowledge of the bast tubes, the connections between the flower stalks, the distribution of latex cells in rubber plants and the anatomy of colonial woods . He also carried out various physiological studies, such as B. the water uptake by the roots of certain trees and the chemical composition of seeds and vanilla enzymes.

Lecomte brought back many plant samples from his travels - more than 2000 from Indochina - which enriched the museum's collections. He devoted himself constantly to the expansion and maintenance of the herbarium and accepted the offer from the Rockefeller Foundation to finance the construction of a new botanical gallery. In addition, he contributed to the cultivation of various tropical plants in the French colonies, such as B. rubber, cotton, coffee and vanilla.

Lecomte's writings include Contribution à l'étude du liber des Angiospermes (1889), Le Café: culture, manipulation, production (1899), Les Bois coloniaux (1923), Sapotaceae (1932) and Flore générale de l'Indochin e (1907) –1950), a monumental work in seven volumes and nine fascicles. In 1909 he founded the Notulae systemica , which was intended for the publication of diagnoses of new species.

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personal data
SURNAME Lecomte, Henri
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lecomte, Paul Henri (full name); Lecomte, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French botanist
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Nabord , Vosges department
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 1934
Place of death 7th arrondissement , Paris