Noël Pierre Joseph León Bernard (13 March 1874 in the 17th arrondissement of Paris – 16 January 1911 in Saint-Benoît, Vienne) was a French botanist, known as the famous discoverer of the symbiotic germination of orchid seeds.

[1] He also discovered Phytoalexins which are antimicrobial and often antioxidative substances synthesized de novo by plants that accumulate rapidly at areas of pathogen infection.

[3] Bernard was considered an outstanding student while attending the Lycée Charlemagne later Lycée Condorcet senior high schools, both located in Paris, in preparation for entry to the Grandes Ecoles, of which he eventually gained entry to the grand school École Normale Supérieure.

Around the same time, he started giving lessons to repay his mothers debts, sometimes to royal families, e.g. Martha, Princess Bibesco, which was ironic as he considered himself an anarchist.

With the mathematician Émile Borel, biologist Maurice Caullery and the physicist Aimé Cotton, he co-published the scientific and literary journal La Revue du mois.