CubaPLUS Magazine

In the municipality of Candelaria, western province of Artemisa, there is the Soroa Botanical Orchid Garden, the only one of its kind in Cuba, with an area of 35,000 m² dedicated mainly to the cultivation of these beautiful flowers, whose humid and cool climate encourages the development of these exotic plants.

Located west of the city of Havana, within the territory of the Reserve of the Sierra del Rosario Biosphere, on the outskirts of the town of Soroa, is found that paradise, which is accessed via the Havana-Pinar del Río highway.

This place is so attractive that it is among the preferences of many tourists, especially from Canada and Europe. Suffice it to point out that from January to May of this year, according to statistics published by the newspaper El Artemiseño, about 6,500 people visited the orchid garden, compared to the 10 thousand registered in 2023, in 2024 the figure should be far greater.

The construction of the orchid garden began in 1943 by Doctor Tomás Felipe Camacho, a lawyer from the Canary Islands and member of the Cuban Society of Orchids, affiliated with the American Orchid Society and the Eastern Orchid Congress, who after nine years converted this fertile hill into a beautiful garden that he baptized with the name of Rancho Pilila, in honor of his youngest daughter who died at the age of 21.

Doctor Camacho died in the year 1961 and the garden became National Heritage. The garden's living collection of orchids numbers around 400 species, varieties and hybrids, both natural and derived from crosses carried out by different Cuban and foreign specialists. Within that total, about 130 species of Cuban orchids are included with a high endemism, representing the main ecosystems of the Island with greater emphasis in western Cuba.

The garden, attached to the University of Artemisa and the National Network of Botanical Gardens, has the largest collection of country orchids. This beautiful place is also a center for experimentation and teacher training for forestry specialists, administered by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment.

In this, detailed studies are carried out on each specimen aimed at accelerating its spread and reintroduction into its natural environment, as well as crossbreeding. It was also learned that the 9th. edition of the international conservation event of orchids, will take place between November 18 and 23, in the garden facilities, with the assistance of 10 Cuban delegates and 30 foreigners, among them prominent specialists such as Doctor Lawrence Zettler, professor at the University of Illinois, in Chicago, United States; Franco Pupulin, of the University of Costa Rica, a world authority on orchidology, and Phil Seaton, of the Royal Botanic Gardens, in Kew, England.