Following his service in the First World War, André Aubréville entered the École Polytechnique and obtained an engineering degree in 1922. Attracted by the botany of tropical forests he then studied at the École nationale des eaux et forêts in Nancy, graduating as Ingénieur des Eaux et Forêts des Colonies in 1924. Appointed to the Côte d'Ivoire in 1925, he wrote La Forêt coloniale. Les forêts de l'Afrique occidentale française in 1938 which was not only a treatise on tropical sylviculture but a tract on the politics of forestry. In 1938, following this important publication, he was appointed Inspector General of waters and forests for Afrique Occidentale Francaise - French West Africa. His publications on tropical Africa are widely recognized for their comprehensive approach to the subject: which include, in addition to the scientific treatment, practical aspects such as forest management, and anthropogenic factors. In parallel with his position in the Forest Services, he served as president of the Société botanique de France in 1951–1952. in 1955, retired from his position as Inspector General, he was appointed professor at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in 1958, thus beginning a second career as holder of the chair of Phanerogamy following Henri Humbert. At this time, the botanical publications at the Museum were in a transition period: one of the major series had ended, the General Flora of Indochina by Paul Henri Lecomte, and human resources had been reduced. None-the-less, André Aubréville wished to provide French-speaking overseas territories with excellent encyclopedic Floras. After ensuring the continuation of the Flora of Madagascar and the Comoros, he launched four major botanical projects. He revived the General Flora of Indochina in the form of Flore du Cambodge, du Laos et du Vietnam. He directed work on Flore du Gabon and Flore du Cameroun, along the lines of his previous flora of tropical Africa, and finally, he initiated another major series: Flore de la Nouvelle-Calédonie et dépendances, of which he wrote the first volume concerning the Sapotaceae family. Work on these five large flora was later managed by his successors Jean-François Leroy and Philippe Morat, and they are still being published. He was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1968.
Selected publications
André Aubréville, , Paris, Société d'éditions géographiques, maritimes et coloniales, 1938
André Aubréville, , Paris, Larose, 1936
André Aubréville, , Paris, Société d’éditions géographiques, maritimes et coloniales, 1949, 351 p.
André Aubréville, Flore forestière soudano-guinéenne : A.O.F. - Cameroun - A.E.F, Paris, Société d’éditions géographiques, maritimes et coloniales, 1949, 523 p.
André Aubréville et al., Flore du Cambodge, du Laos et du Vietnam : supplément à la Flore générale de l'Indochine de H. Lecomte, Paris, Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, 1960
André Aubréville et al., Flore du Gabon, Paris, Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, 1961
André Aubréville et al., Flore du Cameroun, Paris, Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, 1963
André Aubréville et al., Flore de la Nouvelle-Calédonie et dépendances, Paris, Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, 1967
Taxa honouring him
The genus Aubrevillea Pellegr., in the Fabaceae family honours Aubréville. It is composed of two species: Aubrevillea kerstingii Pellegr. and Aubrevillea platicarpa Pellegr. Many other species are named for André Aubréville:
