Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden

This towering colonnade of imperial palms gives the garden its postcard spine, but it began with an attempt to keep a single tree hostage.

In 1809, the Portuguese Prince Regent Dom João planted a lone palm seedling brought from the Mascarene Islands. It grew rapidly into a giant, soon christened the Palma Mater, or Mother Palm. Dom João and his court were enchanted by its imperial height and smooth, columnar trunk, and they decided that something so regal belonged exclusively to the Crown. To ensure no commoner or rival landowner could ever grow one, garden officials were ordered to gather every seed the palm dropped and burn them in secret.

Monopolizing nature, however, is notoriously difficult. The people assigned to cultivate and guard the grounds were enslaved laborers. They recognized the scarcity value of what the crown was incinerating. At night, men risked severe punishment to scale the massive trunk, slip past the guards with pockets full of seeds, and sell them on the black market to wealthy estate owners eager for an imperial status symbol.