Classroom lesson · Cocora Valley and the Wax Palms · 🇨🇴 Colombia

Cocora Valley and the Wax Palms

Colombia's national tree - the tallest palm in the world - in a misty valley

Towering wax palms rising above misty green hills in the Cocora Valley, Colombia

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

The Cocora Valley, near the town of Salento in the Coffee Region, is home to Colombia's national tree - the wax palm. These extraordinary trees are the tallest palms in the world, reaching up to 60 metres high. Their long, thin trunks rise out of misty green meadows like the pillars of a cathedral.

Tell me more

A 60-metre wax palm is taller than a 15-storey building. What makes them even more dramatic is where they grow - not in a flat tropical landscape, but in a high, cool, misty valley in the Andes, surrounded by green hills. They look completely otherworldly, like trees from a fairy tale.

The wax palm gets its name from a waxy coating that covers its trunk. Indigenous communities in the Andes used to collect this wax to make candles. The tree was named Colombia's national tree in 1985, and it is now protected by law. It takes a wax palm about 100 years to reach its full height.

The Cocora Valley is also a wonderful place for birdwatching. Hummingbirds dart between flowers in the lower meadows. The endangered yellow-eared parrot nests at the top of the wax palms - it is one of the only birds in the world that nests in this kind of tree. Conservationists have worked hard to help both the parrots and the palms recover.

Visitors arrive on horseback or on foot through deep cloud forest before emerging into the open valley. Looking up at the wax palms from below, with cloud drifting around their crowns, is one of the most famous views in all of Colombia.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

01A wax palm takes 100 years to reach full height. What might you see in a lifetime that a palm tree growing next to you would see in a century?
02Why might it matter that one bird species nests only in one type of tree? What could happen to the bird if the tree disappeared?
03Colombia made the wax palm its national tree. What would you choose as a national tree, plant or animal for where you live, and why?

Try this

Classroom activity

Go outside and find the tallest thing you can see (a building, a tree, a lamp post). Estimate its height. Then mark out 60 metres on the playground with chalk or rope - that's a full-grown wax palm. How does your tallest thing compare? Draw both next to each other to scale.

Cocora Valley and the Wax Palms

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Discussion prompts

Classroom activity

Other things that make Colombia special

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