Lesley Parness will discuss how French Empress Josephine's fine taste informed 18th and 19th-century style, from couture fashion to interior design. Likewise, she was influenced by her Caribbean heritage, her narrow escape from the guillotine, and her legendary love for flowers.

When divorced from her husband, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, this powerful style-maker and lifelong fashionista focused her energies on her estate, Malmaison. There, Josephine's passion for plants grew and bloomed. Her legendary love of roses stopped a war, cost a fortune, set explorers to sail, and started a floral industry that endures today.

Lesley Parness is the retired Superintendent of Horticultural Education at New Jersey's Morris County Park Commission where she oversaw programming at The Frelinghuysen Arboretum, Willowwood Arboretum and Bamboo Brook Outdoor Education Center. She is a member of the Herb Society of America, The Council on Horticultural and Botanical Literature, and Garden State Gardens, a consortium of New Jersey's public gardens of which she is a Founding Member.

Program registration begins at 6:30 p.m., the presentation begins at 7 p.m. and Q&A follow at 8 p.m.