Somewhere in Sanssouci Park, not far from the canal, stands a Southern Catalpa that has been quietly getting on with things since 1753. It is the last survivor of the Royal Nursery, a tree propagation ground established in 1790 to supply the park with new plantings. The nursery is long gone. The tree is not.

It predates the nursery that tended it by nearly four decades, which gives it a pleasingly awkward relationship with its own history. It was cared for by Royal Horticulturist Sello, whose family lies buried in the Bornstedt cemetery nearby. Frederick the Great, his successors, and generations of Prussian royalty would have passed it on their walks through the park.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tour pauses here to let that sink in, placing the tree within the broader story of Sanssouci Park as a living landscape shaped by kings, garden architects, and the occasional surviving catalpa.