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Henri Stehlé (November 30, 1909 – February 19, 1983) was a French agronomist, botanist and ecologist specialized in tropical agriculture. In 1949 he founded the Agronomic Research Centre of INRA Antilles-Guyane in Guadeloupe (French Antilles). As botanist he worked mainly in Guadeloupe and Martinique in collaboration with his wife, Madeleine Stehlé, and Reverend Father Louis Quentin. Stehlé focused his work on two plant families: Orchidaceae and Piperaceae. The abbreviation Stehlé is used to indicate Henry Stehlé as the authority for many plant names.

Education
Stehlé completed his agronomic engineering training at the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon en 1931, and then specialized in tropical agriculture at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Agriculture Coloniale. In 1947 he completed a PhD thesis on the phytogeography of the forest types in the Caribbean, at the Université de Montpellier, which earned him the prize of the Institut de France.

Career
Stehlé served as Director of the Experimental Gardens of Guadeloupe (1934-1938) and Martinique (1938-1946), and established the Schools of Agriculture in these French departments. During this period he collaborated with the New York Botanical Garden and the National Museum of Natural History of the United States.

At the beginning of the 1940's, Stehlé published two articles in Tropiques, the literary review founded and edited by the Martinican poet Aimé Césaire: "La végétation des Antilles françaises" (1941), and "Les dénominations génériques des végétaux aux Antilles françaises: histoires et légendes qui s'y attachent" (1944).

Following the foundation of the INRA Antilles-Guyane in 1949, he worked on the control of soil erosion, the conservation and characterization of local plant resources, and the improvement of farming practices for several tropical crops (vanilla, coffee, cassava, forage legumes). He also carried out numerous expert missions in the Caribbean, Central and South America, and represented the INRA in several FAO sessions.

After his return to France in 1964, Stehlé worked at the INRA Antibes as Senior Researcher, and was Director of the National Parks of Port-Cros and Mercantour.

At the time of his death in 1983, Stehlé was working to complete his last work "Histoire botanique, écologique et agricole des Antilles françaises, des Caraïbes à nos jours".

Prizes and distinctions

 * 1931. Prize of Chimie of the École Nationale d'Agriculture.
 * 1936. Prize of the Institut de France (Académie de Sciences).
 * 1938. Prize Jules Crevaux of the Société de Géographie Commerciale de Paris.
 * 1939. Prize Gandoger of the Société Botanique de France.
 * 1946. Ordre des Palmas Académiques.
 * 1947. Chevalier de l’Ordre de l'Étoile Noire of Bénin.
 * 1949. Order of Agricultural Merit.
 * 1949. Prize Coincy of the Société Botanique de France, with Madeleine Stehlé and Louis Quentin.

Selected publications

 * 1936. Flore de la Guadeloupe et Dépendances. Essai d’Écologie et de géographie botanique. Tome 1. 286 p. Ed. Basse-Terre.
 * 1939. Flore descriptive des Antilles françaises: les Orchidiales. 144 p. Imprimerie officielle de la Martinique.
 * 1941. The flora of Martinique. J. New York Bot. Gard. 42, 235-244.
 * 1946. Notes taxonomiques et écologiques sur les Légumineuses Papillionacées des Antilles françaises. Bull. Museum XVIII (1), 98-117.
 * Vanilla planifolia Stehlé.jpg. Le Vanillier et sa culture: I. Histoire, botanique, géographie et écologie du Vanillier. Rev. Fruits & Fruits d'Outre-Mer 7 (2), 50-56.
 * 1954. Quelques notes sur la Botanique et l'Écologie végétale de l'Archipel des Caraïbes. J. Agricult. Trop. Bot. Appl. 1 (1-4), 71-110.
 * 1956. Survey of forage crops in the Caribbean. 389 p. Ed. Trinidad.
 * 1958. Une Excursion à La Soufrière (La Guadeloupe). 86 p. Ed. Artra.
 * 1962. Flore médicinale an tan lontan (with Madeleine Sthelé). Ed. Desormeaux.
 * 1966. Quelques mises au point historiques relatives à l’introduction de végétaux économiques aux Antilles françaises. Bull. Société d'Histoire de la Guadeloupe (5-6), 27–37.
 * 1978. Essai d'écologie et de géographie botanique. 282 p. Ed. Calivran.