Tagua meaning

Besides rubber, the forests produce a great variety of cabinet and construction woods, ivory-nuts (from the " tagua " palm, Phytelephas macrocarpa), " toquilla " fibre (Carludovica palmata) for the manufacture of so-called Panama hats, cabbage palms, several species of cinchona, vanilla and dyewoods.

Another palm of much economic importance in Colombia is the "tagua" (Phytelephas macrocarpa),which grows abundantly in the valleys of the Magdalena, Atrato and Patia, and produces a large melon-shaped fruit in which are found the extremely hard, fine-grained nuts or seeds known in the commercial world as vegetable ivory.

You also find a lotus pendant carved out of a Tagua nut, which has the appearance of ivory.