Let us join Brothers Marie-Victorin and L?on at the Soledad Botanical Garden. This is a good time to note that Cuba's flora is the most diversified of anywhere in the Antilles, and that half of its 7,020 species are endemic, meaning that they grow nowhere else.
The fact that Cuba is an island contributes to this very high rate, as does the diversity of its soil, relief and microclimates.
Carabia and Marie-Victorin examining a cone of Microcycas calocoma, an endemic plant with an ancient past. Seeing this survivor from the Cretaceous, a botanist cannot help but be amazed and almost moved.
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