Episode

Napoleon's Bald Cypress

Podcast
Our Plant Stories
Published
Jun 3, 2025
Duration seconds
1896
Processing state
not_requested
Canonical source
https://www.ourplantstories.com/episodes/napoleons-bald-cypress
Audio
https://op3.dev/e/episodes.captivate.fm/episode/fd861938-3fe8-4445-b6a0-60164f18255d.mp3
JSON
/v1/public/podcasts/our-plant-stories-6074024/episodes/napoleon-s-bald-cypress
Markdown
/podcast/our-plant-stories-6074024/napoleon-s-bald-cypress.md

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Summary

This episode features the State Tree of Louisiana, the Bald Cypress. (Taxodium distichum). But the Bald Cypress in the plant story is not in the USA but in the Loire in France, in the grounds of a beautiful chateau. How it got there is part of the story, a gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to the chateau owner, bought back from his last expedition to Louisiana in 1802! So through a plant story about a Bald Cypress, we bring together two countries, and a moment in history in 1803, remembered by one nation, perhaps forgotten by the other as Napoleon sells Louisiana to the Americans. You can see photographs of the tree and find links to the chateau on the Our Plant Stories website www.ourplantstories.com Our Plant Stories is presented and produced by Sally Flatman The music is Fade to Black by Howard Levy Every month I will make a plant story but stories often lead to more stories and I end up publishing Offshoot episodes. So if you 'Follow' the podcast on your podcast app you will never miss an episode. It also makes a real difference if you can spare the time to rate and/or review an episode after you have listened. Spotify and Apple look at these ratings and it helps to get the podcast promoted to other plant lovers. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy