Queen Catherine of Braganza banned flowers in Green Park

Why is Green Park so green? Well, it has no lakes, no buildings, and only minimal flower planting in the form of naturalised narcissus. The park consists almost entirely of mature trees rising out of turf. Back in the 1700s, King Charles II was caught picking flowers in the park for another woman. His Queen, Catherine of Braganza, didn't take it well. In a move of peak pettiness, she ordered that every single flower in the park should be pulled up and no more planted.

It was a long time coming. The area is said to have been for many medieval years a swampy burial ground for lepers from the hospital at St James's. By the 1600s, it was a sandpit for building materials, and by the 1700s, it was a notorious haunt of highwaymen and thieves.

Before John Nash landscaped the park in 1820, it was a wilder place. It hosted public fireworks displays - including the ones for which Handel composed his music - and it was known as a duelling ground. In 1730, a notorious duel took place here between William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath and John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol.

Today, it is a seamless stretch of green land connecting Hyde Park and St. James's Park. If you look closely near the Bomber Command Memorial, you might see some wildflowers in the 90th Coronation Meadow, but for the most part, it remains a floral graveyard by royal decree.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons