NIRVANA NATURAL RESERVE 

THE COMINO CRESPO (Aniba perulitis).​

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The presence of the Comino Crespo tree have given NIRVANA its greater identity and relevance. It is the finest of American hardwood. It is called vegetable gold because its wood has a rich golden color and because during the Spanish conquest, was transported from Cartagena to Europe together with Gold reflecting its value. It is especially earmarked for the construction of altars and altarpieces of the great cathedrals of Europe and for the manufacture of furniture, windows and doors of royal palaces. The conquerors of the then "New Kingdom of Granada" presented to King Felipe II large quantities of this wood for the furnishing of the palace “El Escorial”. In the upper parts of NIRVANA and La Buitrera - in the village called the Cominal - there were extensive forests of Comino that were cut irrationally by settlers in the early twentieth century to extract railway ties for the Pacific Railroad as well as wood for construction of station buildings and warehouses of the railway in Palmira and Pradera. Only three trees survived the carnage and with the fruits seeds this species was saved from the edge of extinction. NIRVANA has planted a lot of trees and has distributed seeds and seedlings in other forest reserves and botanical gardens. NIRVANA is a unique place in the world to find the genetic material of this precious species in danger of extinction and heritage. Three universities in Colombia and the Humboldt Institute have programs for the species recovery. Comino Crespo tree requires 200 years to reach full maturity. The destroyed forest was a vast cemetery of tree roots. At the time of cutting, the trees were between 300 to 1,000 years old. These roots withstood the rigors of time for a 100 years, and were rescued by NIRVANA. Today some are in the park or in the Museum of Roots, and others have been used to craft furniture of great artistic value. In recent archaeological excavations in the region pieces of sarcophagi were found that are more than 900-years old demonstrating the strength of the wood, impervious to moisture, weather and pests.