Product description
The tagua, also known as the ivory nut or vegetable ivory, is the seed of the Phytelephas macrocarpa palm, which grows in the tropical rain forests of the Pacific region, especially in Panama, Colombia and Ecuador.
It is used and marketed internationally, mainly to make buttons and also artistic or decorative figures and ornaments.
Tagua or vegetable ivory is obtained from the hard white endosperm of the seeds of the palm tree Phytelephas Aequatorialis, of the Arecaceae family.
The species is distributed in the northwest of South America.
The polished endosperm of the seed looks very much like ivory, despite its completely different properties.
In Ecuador, the species used to obtain tagua is Phytelephas aequatorialis, which exists in the subtropical zone between the Andes and the Coast, especially in the province of Manabí up to an altitude of approximately 1,500 meters.
