As a botanist, Father Soulié collected more than 7,000 species, among them Rosa soulieana, a species of endemic Rosa, which was introduced in Europe by Auguste Louis Maurice de Vilmorin, and studied by Museum d'histoire naturelle in Paris, and then by François Crépin in 1896.
Sabourin left Vilmorin in 1931 to become Head of Studies of the Municipal School of Horticulture at Breuil, where he also reorganized the collections and library.