The Unique Wax Palm Forests Landscape Destinations in Colombia

Come to Colombia to meet the outstanding Wax Palm! As we mentioned in a past entry, the Wax Palm, Ceroxylon quindiuense (Karsten) Wendl, is an endangered endemic species of Colombia. It is also the national tree and the star of one of the most beautiful and emblematic landscapes of the Colombian Andes.

Tourism is one of the most promising conservation strategies for this species. On the other hand, rural communities prefer it over agriculture, livestock, and mining.

Today there are all-terrain trucks that travel through areas such as Toche. There are even bicycle tours that take you to remote farms so you can enjoy the spectacular landscapes of the cloud forest with wax palms while descending to Toche or Salento.

Where to see Wax Palm Forests in Colombia

Salento and Valle de Cocora

The municipality of Salento is the cradle of the national tree, the Wax Palm, and has a great variety of tourist attractions. Salento is the oldest municipality of Quindío and the oldest among the three main departments that make part of the Coffee Triangle (Caldas, Risaralda, and Quindío). It is a beautiful town, interesting for its typical crafts and its streets full of color and history.

Plaza de Bolivar Square - Salento, Quindío
Bolívar Square – Salento, Quindío

Walking around the town will help you get to know the architecture typical of the Antioquian colonization, in which mud and adobe houses predominate, with colorful gates made of wood, and windows and balconies full of flowers.

The best days to visit Salento are during the week, since there are fewer visitors. You will find a varied offer of accommodation among luxury hotels, hostels, camping areas, and glamping.

What to do in Salento

Among its most important attractions are:

  • The Cocora Valley
  • The National Natural Park Los Nevados
  • The Traditional Architecture of the Colonization
  • The Bolivar Square
  • The Royal Street
  • The Church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen
  • The Ecoparque El Mirador and Alto de la Cruz
  • The Artisan’s Village
  • The Bridge of the Explanation “El Amparo”
  • A Coffee Tour
  • The Agro-ecological Park “The Promised Land”

COVID-19 update: most of the restaurants, stores, and tourist sites in Salento have already opened their doors again. However, the increase in cases of coronavirus has caused the Mayor’s Office to consider regulating the entry of visitors.

Valle de Cocora (Cocora Valley)

The Cocora Valley is located within the Coffee Cultural Landscape, a territory declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2011.

The Cocora Valley – Quindío

Thousands of tourists travel every year to the Cocora Valley, in the coffee region of Colombia, to admire its impressive palms.

What to do in Cocora Valley

Here you can enjoy the sighting of one of the most beautiful landscapes of Colombia while having a delicious cup of coffee at the Mirador Aires de Cocora. In this place, you can enjoy not only coffee but also delicacies such as passion fruit, cakes, desserts, and sweets to brighten up the afternoon in the company of your family or friends.

Besides drinking coffee, you can go on a guided horseback ride through the valley and take pictures of the monumental landscapes. Quindío and the Cocora Valley are unique places in the world that deserve to be known, preserved, and admired by all.

Guided horseback ride through the Cocora Valley

But even in this region, the wax palms are scarce. The fact that much of the surrounding forest has been cut down to make way for cattle grazing is part of the reason for their scarcity and, in turn, their threat.

So, if you want to know a real wax palm forest and see the landscape that amazed both explorers, travelers and naturalists, as Mutis and Humboldt, from the eighteenth century to today, I recommend the following destinations below.

Where to stay in Salento

Toche: A Post-Conflict Destination

86% of the wax palm forests are found in Toche, being the largest wax palm forest in Colombia and the world, with around 600.000 individuals!

86% of the wax palm forests are found in Toche, Tolima

Toche is a small village hidden between mountains and fog. It is no longer one of the areas of Tolima most affected by the armed conflict. The armed conflict took this region out of the hands of deforestation, and that is why there are very well-preserved high Andean forests.

Today it is a beautiful example of the community’s effort to position this place as a tourist destination of choice.

How to Arrive to Toche

Toche can be reached from Salento, Quindío, by an open road that crosses a moorland area, and gives you the most spectacular views of the cloud forest with wax palms that you can’t even imagine.

You can also arrive from Tolima, from the municipality of Cajamarca. From there you will have to go up to Toche on a very difficult road. It is only possible to go by off-road transport, to make sure you don’t get stuck on the way. This road is also very difficult due to the constant landslides on the mountain slopes.

Cerro Machín Volcano. In the background the urban area of the municipality of Cajamarca. ©Colombian Geological Service

What to do in Toche

In Toche you have to visit the Cerro Machín Volcano. This is an active volcano, one of the most dangerous in the world. You can walk to its top, while you find hot springs and clouds of gases released to the surface through mini-craters. You can also walk over the main crater of the volcano, which looks like a swampy area, where you can also observe birds and a forest with wax palms around it.

In Toche, you can also take ecological walks, visit and enjoy hot springs, and do bird watching, especially the yellow-eared parrot.

Where to stay in Toche

Another Wax Palm Destinations

There are other regions in Colombia where you can find wax palm forests. These are mainly in Caldas, Quindío, Tolima, and Valle del Cauca. However, here I will tell you the most appropriate ones to visit.

You can even find wax palms in cities like Bogota, or Armenia, at the Quindío Botanical Garden. To know more read our entry The Wax Palm and Why it is a Must to See When Visiting Colombia.

San Félix – Caldas

In San Felix is the Samaria Forest, a forest of wax palms. San Felix is a village located at 2,823 meters above sea level in the north of the department of Caldas, 25 km from its municipal capital Salamina and 96.3 km from the capital of Caldas Manizales. Its climate is cold, with an average temperature of 14°C and the temperatures in the early summer go up to 0°C.

La Samaria Forest at San Félix, Salamina, Caldas. ©La Patria Newspaper

It is called “The Paradise of the North”, a name that is due to its landscapes of unparalleled beauty. It has a natural forest of wax palms to which you will arrive by jeep. There you will be received by the peasant community, hard-working, humble, simple, and committed to the region. You will enjoy typical dishes and a guided walk-through path surrounded by wax palms.

The jeep is the car par excellence to move around the Colombian coffee axis.

Tourism is very important as an economic alternative for the cultivation of Hass avocados in this region. This crop is devastating hectares of forest and destroying the habitat of the wax palm in this region.

Where to stay in San Félix

Jardín – Antioquia

The Yellow-Eared Parrot Reserve was established by Proaves Foundation in order to guarantee the survival and promote conservation actions aimed at the populations of Yellow-Eared Parrot (Ognorhynchus icterotis) and Wax Palm (Ceroxylon quindiuense), in the areas of Jardín (Antioquia) and Riosucio (Caldas) in Colombia.

Jardín, Antioquia

The Reserve is located in the village of Ventanas, one hour from the town of Jardin (Antioquia), on the road that connects this municipality with Riosucio, Caldas. It has an extension of 188 hectares and presents altitudes ranging from 1,900 to 2,600 meters above sea level. It is classified by the Alliance for Zero Extinction as an AZE site.

Yellow-eared Parrot

This place is the only wax palm sanctuary established in Colombia, but its main goal is to protect the endangered Yellow-eared parrot, a species that nests in the trunks of the wax palm.

According to María José Sanín, a botanist at the CES University in Medellín, the problem is that the palms must be dead since that population of palms is old and is dying massively, which is good for parrots and birders, but terrible for the palms.

What to do in the Reserve

In the Reserve, you can go hiking and bird watching. There are also hummingbird watering places, where the Inca Collared comes.

Where to stay in Jardín

You can find another landscape destination in our entry Top 18 Natural Breathtaking Landscapes in Colombia.

If you want to schedule your visit to know the national tree of Colombia, do not hesitate to contact us, and plan your trip with us!


References


About the author

Sara Colmenares

Current director of Sula. Doctor in Biological Sciences. Her main interests are to explore and understand the organism – environment interactions, taking advantage of emerging knowledge for the management and conservation of species and ecosystem services. She is currently working as a consultant in functional ecology, ecosystem services and conservation projects in Colombia related to ecotourism and birdwatching.

The Wax Palm and Why it is a Must to See When Visiting Colombia

According to the World Biodiversity Ranking, Colombia ranks third in the number of palm species (Arecaceae Family). The Andean region presents the richest flora of the palms in the country, with 43% of the total species of Colombia. Among all the palm species found in Colombia, the Wax Palm is the most special. Here I will tell you why.

Palm trees have been linked to the life of man and his feelings since immemorial times, principally because of their graceful appearance and the innumerable benefits they bring.

For this reason, the term palm is not only applied to palms but also has a connotation of triumph, victory, and applause; it is also used as a title of honor for the great ones of a kingdom.

Colombia is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of palms, with 289 species, 47 of which are endemic.

The Wax Palm Ceroxylon quindiuense (Karsten) Wendl

The Wax Palm under its natural view

The first news about the existence of wax palms is due to José Celestino Mutis. It was found by him in the Andean Mountains, in the passage between Quindío and Tolima departments.

He found them distributed between 2400 and 2900 meters (7930 – 9700 ft) above sea level , within cloud forests composed mainly of native pine trees (Podocarpus) and oaks (Quercus granatensis). The species was validated by a description published in 1808.

Other remarkable explorers and naturalists, Alexander Von Humboldt and Aimé Jacques Alexandre Bonpland, re-discovered the wax palm in 1801, and just like Mutis, they were also fascinated by this plant. Humboldt described the spectacle as one of the most moving of all his journeys:

“The forest upon the forest, where tall, slender palms penetrate the leafy veil that surrounds them”.

Alexander Von Humboldt
The Forest upon the Forest

William Purdie, a Scottish Botanist from that time, also described the characteristics and features of our national tree in these terms:

“The haughty, noble trunk of this tree is covered with a layer of resinous wax, which gives it a whitish marble appearance, providing a lively distinctive feature to the very peculiar scenery of the Quindio moor, where the palm abounds in extraordinary degree without causing any damage to the subordinate forest under its pleasant shade.

To obtain the wax the tree is felled and I was informed by my guides that each tree provides up to 25 pounds… The wax is used mixed with tallow to make candles… to offer to the saints and the Virgin… it is in considerable demand but is abundant and easy to obtain”.

William Purdie

These chronicles and descriptions show the importance of the wax palm since ancient times. Some historians even claim that it was used by indigenous people for the extraction of gold.

Wax Palm Facts

Each Each palm can produce up to nine bunches simultaneously, each with 4,000 fruits or more. ©Makalu Pixabay
  1. Its stem is covered by a layer of wax that can be used to make candles.
  2. It can live up to 200 years.
  3. A seedling takes around 50 years to reach the adult phase.
  4. The wax palm can reach 70 meters in height.
  5. It lives in an uncommon habitat for palms, above 3000 meters above sea level, with low temperatures that are unusual for a palm to resist.
  6. The seedling is shadow dependent, so fragmentation and deforestation are killing these palm populations.
  7. Each wax palm can produce about 24,000 fruits per year.
  8. Each palm can produce up to nine bunches simultaneously, each with 4,000 fruits or more.
  9. Despite the number of seeds and seedling a wax palm produces, less than 8% survive at the end.
  10. In the wax palms, there are females and males, as in humans. This implies that for its reproduction the palm needs some mechanism to carry the pollen from the males to the females.
  11. Wax palm pollination is carried out by several species of tiny beetles of the genus Mystrops.
  12. Pollinators, in turn, depend on the wax palm for their survival, since the adults feed exclusively on its pollen and the females lay their eggs in the small flowers of the palm, where the larvae that are born feed on the tissue of the petals.
  13. The wax palm attracts its small pollinating beetles by the aroma of its flowers, which have volatile chemical compounds specially designed to conquer them. It is a system as precise as a key in its lock.
  14. A well-conserved population of palms can produce more than two billion mature fruits each year, which represents an extraordinary source of food for the fauna.
  15. It is home and refuge of the Yellow-eared Parrot (Ognorhynchus icterotis).
  16. It is an ‘umbrella species’ since its conservation is key to the survival of many others, or of entire ecosystems.
  17. Each stem ring represents a year of growth.

Colombia’s National Tree

The Wax Palm was proposed by the colombian botanist Armando Dugand as the national tree of Colombia. He was the director of the Institute of Natural Sciences of the National University of Colombia and a recognized specialist in palms. In July of 1949, Dugand proposed it as such to the organizing committee of the Third South American Congress of Botany.

The Wax Palm, Ceroxylon quindiuense (Karsten) Wendl, was proposed by Armando Dugand as the national tree of Colombia.

Dugand highlighted the wax palm as a true aesthetic heritage of Colombia and as its most typical plant, not only because it is an outstanding and characteristic element of the Andean landscape, but also because of the wax it produces and the extraordinary nature of its habitat, which goes far beyond the geographical and altitudinal limits common to the palm family.

He also described it as the most beautiful and most developed among the palms, since it can surpass 50 meters in height. Due to the characteristic of these plants to take a long time to decompose and take up to 200 years to complete its life cycle, they were thought to symbolize the capacity to persist and last.

Since then, the wax palm has been considered the national tree, and so it appears in many writings, minutes, documents, and postcards.

Colombia stamp with the Wax Palm
The Cocora Valley and the Quindio Wax Palm, honored in the 100 thousand peso bill issued by the @BancoRepublica on August 8, 2014 and put into circulation on March 31, 2016.

Additionally, in 1985, the Congress of the Republic of Colombia adopted the Quindío wax palm, C. quindiuense, as the national tree with the Law 61 of 1985. It is so valuable and so representative of our country that this law stipulates in its article 3:

“The felling of the wax palm is forbidden under a criminal sanction applicable in the form of a fine, convertible into an arrest, for the benefit of the municipality where the infraction has been committed”.

Law 61 of 1985

Palms as a Sign of Scientific and Botanical Values, as well as Biological Diversity.

Some historians affirm that in the 19th and 20th centuries, palms were planted around patriotic places as a sign of scientific and botanical values and to emphasize that Colombia is biodiverse. The preferred palm was always the Wax Palm.

In Bogotá, you can find wax palm gardens in places such as Universidad Externado de Colombia, the botanical garden of Bogotá José Celestino Mutis, the El Dorado Avenue (26th street) in Bogotá, which is a temple of the wax palm, and the Eje Ambiental in the center of the city.

Wax Palm at the botanical garden of Bogotá José Celestino Mutis

All the important buildings that frame the El Dorado Avenue and the Eje Ambiental in Bogota have in their facilities, or very close to their facades, a wax palm. These are, on El Dorado Avenue: The National Administrative Center (CAN), the Military Forces, the National Registry Office, the Government of Cundinamarca, the Bogotá Police Hospital, the Bank of the Republic of Colombia, the National Health Institute, and RTVC-Public Media System. In the Eje Ambiental, the Colombian Academy of Language, the Icetex, the Icfes, and the monument of the Templete de Bolívar.

The Wax Palm at the botanical garden of Bogotá José Celestino Mutis

The Wax Palm in Risk of Extinction

But it has not been worth so much recognition, nor that many people wrote poems or songs to this plant. The Colombian Wax Palm is under serious risk of extinction, initially due to its exploitation by religious interests, and later by changes in land use such as deforestation for agriculture and livestock.

The Colombian Wax Palm is under serious risk of extinction, among the causes are deforestation for agriculture and livestock.

Recently, it is the cultivation of the Hass avocado that has endangered the survival of the Wax Palm. The situation is worrisome because the area declared as a Coffee Cultural Landscape by UNESCO is beginning to change due to the displacement of the traditional coffee cultivation by the Hass avocado.

This has also led to the endangerment of a species of bird endemic to the Colombian Andes, the Yellow-eared Parrot. The Wax Palm is the plant where it builds its nests and on which it feeds.

Yellow-eared Parrot flying over the Yellow-eared Parrot Bird Reserve in Jardín, Antioquia

Wax palms have special protection because several investigations determined a few years ago that they are dying of old age and the new plants take more than 50 years to grow!

Tourism is one of the most promising conservation strategies for this species. On the other hand, rural communities prefer it over agriculture, livestock, and mining.

If you want to know where to go for visiting the most emblematic landscape of the Colombian Andes, read our entry The Unique Wax Palm Forests Destinations in Colombia.

If you want to schedule your visit to Colombia, do not hesitate to contact us, and plan your trip with us!


References


About the author

Sara Colmenares

Current director of Sula. Doctor in Biological Sciences. Her main interests are to explore and understand the organism – environment interactions, taking advantage of emerging knowledge for the management and conservation of species and ecosystem services. She is currently working as a consultant in functional ecology, ecosystem services and conservation projects in Colombia related to ecotourism and birdwatching.