Henry de Vilmorin

Who is Henry de Vilmorin?

Charles Henry Philippe Lévêque de Vilmorin was a French botanist, the son of Pierre François "Louis" Lévêque de Vilmorin and Elisa Bailly, and grandfather of the novelist, poet and journalist, Louise de Vilmorin. Seven generations of the family of Vilmorin contributed greatly to French agriculture for over two hundred and thirty years by their improvements of sugar-beet and wheat - they published more than three hundred and sixty articles on plants in agriculture, horticulture, floriculture and botany.

Henry's great-grandfather Philippe Victoire de Vilmorin 1746-1804 and his wife's father, Pierre Andrieux, chief seed supplier and botanist to King Louis XV, revived an old seed-growing firm and named it Vilmorin-Andrieux in 1774. Henry headed the firm from 1873 and was the first to hybridise wheat. As a result he introduced 18 strains of high-yield wheat while continuing his father’s work on the breeding of sugar beets, and publishing Les meilleurs blés in 1880 with descriptions of the best winter and spring wheat varieties and their cultivation. This was followed by a supplement published by Vilmorin-Andrieux et Cie in 1909.