Rare Plants Protected in Cuban Botanical Garden
Pinar del Río, Cuba, Sep 23. – Living fossils, like the Jurassic cork palm, grow today in the botanical garden of this city that evokes the evolution of plants from the most primitive to the most developed. In some 70 hectares, there are thousands of varieties, mostly native to Cuba.
Considered a rare plant because of its age, the cork plant is one of the most curious inhabitants of the botanical garden.
The old specimen of spongy trunk and over 250 millions of years of age, survives only in this tip of the archipelago, known as the cathedral of Cuban landscape.
Along with the palm trees, declared National Monument, live in harmony other species like the psilotum, a representative of the first organisms that inhabited the planet.
The archaic forest, a main attraction, offers a walk through history of the green universe surrounding us.
Still growing, the botanical garden might be the home to up to 6,00 species, and current collections have plants from different ecosystems or soils in the province, according to experts.
Among split paths, there are distinctive varieties from the mogotes (karst mountains) of the Vinales Valley, as well as trees from Alturas de Pizarra, in Guaniguanico mountain, one of the oldest in the Caribbean.
Dedicated to Afro-Cuban deities and cults, the Ewe Mount is home to the siguaraya and the ceiba tree, among others.
The Jose Marti forest has flowers and shrubs mentioned by Cuba's national hero in his works.
Pinar del Rio residents and visitors can see here species of the most evolved flora, like the orchids, along with the most ancient, which defy time.(Prensa Latina)