National Orchid Garden

This guide to Singapore's National Orchid Garden opens with a diplomatic tradition dating to 1956: every visiting head of state gets a brand-new orchid hybrid bred and named just for them, including one grown for Nelson Mandela's 1997 visit. It moves through the garden's Victorian VIP bungalow, its thousand-plus species across three hillside hectares, and the unresolved question of how Agnes Joaquim, a nineteenth-century Armenian horticulturist, first found Singapore's national flower growing in her garden. Walk the slope slowly and look for the hybrids named after world leaders.