The Jardin exotique du Fort Napoléon is a

botanical garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...

specializing in

succulent In botany, succulent plants, also known as succulents, are plants with parts that are thickened, fleshy, and engorged, usually to retain water in arid climates or soil conditions. The word ''succulent'' comes from the Latin word ''sucus'', meani ...

s. It is located on the grounds of Fort Napoléon at 120 m altitude above

Terre-de-Haut Terre-de-Haut (; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Tèdého) is a commune in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe, including Terre-de-Haut Island and a few other small uninhabited islands of the archipelago (''les Roches Percées''; ''Îlet à ...

Îles des Saintes The Îles des Saintes (; "Islands of the Female Saints"), also known as Les Saintes, is a group of small islands in the archipelago of Guadeloupe, an overseas department of France. It is part of the Canton of Trois-Rivières and is divided int ...

, and is open daily. Fort Napoléon was first erected in 1777 as Fort Louis, destroyed by the British in 1809, rebuilt from 1844, and given its present name during the reign of

Napoleon III of France Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

. Today's exotic garden was created in 1984 and paired with the

Jardin Exotique de Monaco The Jardin Exotique de Monaco ( French for "exotic garden of Monaco") is a botanical garden located on a cliffside in Monaco. History The succulent plants were brought back from Mexico in the late 1860s. By 1895, Augustin Gastaud, who served as ...

in 1986, with whom it began plant exchanges in 1987. Today the garden contains a collection of local plants and other succulents including

Agavaceae Agavoideae is a subfamily of monocot flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, order Asparagales. It has previously been treated as a separate family, Agavaceae. The group includes many well-known desert and dry-zone types, such as the agav ...

Cactaceae A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Greek ...

, succulent

Euphorbia ''Euphorbia'' is a very large and diverse genus of flowering plants, commonly called spurge, in the family Euphorbiaceae. "Euphorbia" is sometimes used in ordinary English to collectively refer to all members of Euphorbiaceae (in deference to t ...

, and

Liliaceae The lily family, Liliaceae, consists of about 15 genera and 610 species of flowering plants within the order Liliales. They are monocotyledonous, perennial, herbaceous, often bulbous geophytes. Plants in this family have evolved with a fair ...

. Of particular interest are its collections of rare and endangered Cactaceae, including '' Mammillaria nivosa'', ''

Melocactus intortus ''Melocactus intortus'', also known as the Turk's cap cactus, is a species of cactus endemic to the Caribbean. Etymology The Turks Islands in the Turks and Caicos are named after this cactus, whose red cephalium resembles the fez worn by Turk ...

'', ''

Opuntia dillenii ''Opuntia dillenii'' is a species of Opuntia, prickly pear native to the tropical and subtropical Americas. It is naturalized in many other parts of the world. It differs from ''Opuntia stricta, O. stricta'' by having more spines per areole (usua ...

'', '' Opuntia rubescens'', ''

Opuntia triacantha ''Opuntia triacantha'' is a species of cactus known by the common names Spanish lady, Keys Joe-jumper, Big Pine Key prickly-pear, and jumping prickly apple. It is native to the Caribbean, from Desecheo Island, Puerto Rico, to the Lesser Antilles. ...

'', '' Opuntia tuna'', ''

Pereskia aculeata ''Pereskia aculeata'' is a scrambling shrub in the family Cactaceae. Common names include Barbados gooseberry, blade-apple cactus, leaf cactus, rose cactus, and lemonvine. It is native to tropical America. The leaves and fruits are edible, cont ...

'', '' Pilosocereus nobilis'', and ''

Selenicereus grandiflorus ''Selenicereus grandiflorus'' is a cactus species originating from the Antilles, Mexico and Central America. The species is commonly referred to as queen of the night, night-blooming cereus (though these two terms are also used for other speci ...

''.

References

BGCI entry

Conservatoire des Jardins et Paysages entry (French)

Conservatoire des Jardins et Paysages description (French)

Guadeloupe-fr.com description (French)

Gardens in Îles des Saintes Fort Napoleon, Jardin exotique du Fort Napoleon, Jardin exotique du {{France-garden-stub

See also

References