Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro
Formal palm avenue and lakes where a single ancestral tree shaped a nation's landscape.
Location
About this audio guide
In Rio de Janeiro's Botanical Garden, this guide follows a single palm brought as a seedling from Mauritius and planted by the Portuguese king in 1809, the year he founded the garden as a refuge from Napoleon's army. Two decades later the tree finally fruited, and its director tried to keep it one of a kind by ordering every seed burned. The enslaved workers who tended the grounds had other plans, and coffee planters across the countryside soon wanted in on the same status symbol.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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