Jean-François Leroy

Jean-François Leroy (25 February 1915 – 8 February 1999) was a French botanist who specialised in tropical botany, particularly the flora of Madagascar, and served for many years at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris.

Biography Jean-François Leroy was born in Athis-de-l'Orne, Normandy. His father, a schoolteacher, died one year after his birth, and Leroy spent his early childhood living with his grandmother, alongside his mother and sister. He completed his primary and secondary education in Flers.

Initially pursuing literary studies, Leroy obtained a degree in literature at the University of Lyon in 1938. On the advice of Auguste Chevalier, a distant relative and prominent botanist, he shifted toward botany and joined the Laboratory of Tropical Agronomy at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, directed by Chevalier. Flore du Gabon (1985) Flore de Madagascar (1991) Origine et évolution des plantes à fleurs : les Nymphéas et le génie de la nature (1993)