Miguel A. “Papo” Vives Heyliger Arboretum

The Miguel A. "Papo" Vives-Heyliger arboretum is located in the Hacienda La Esperanza Nature Reserve. Conveniently situated in the grounds of a historic site of the sugar cane hacienda from the 1870's. The arboretum is strategically in the middle of the alluvial valley and serves as a center of connection between many habitats like the karst region, wetlands to the coastal forest. With 9.71 acres the arboretum hosts a wide variety of trees and other types of plants.

Special collections include the native plants collection dedicated to the native and endemic plants of the Puerto Rican bank. Several rare and endangered plants are showcased in this collection like Puerto Rican violet tree (Phlebotaenia cowellii) which is the symbol flower of the arboretum, palo de rosa (Ottoschulzia rhodoxylon), palo de nigua (Cornutia obovata), beautiful Goetzea (Goetzea elegans), Heller's cieneguillo (Daphnopsis helleriana), chupacallo (Pleodendron macranthum), Fajardo's big guava (Eugenia fajardensis), Taino birdcatcher tree (Pisonia taina) and turtlefat (Auerodendrum pauciflorum) which has been propagated and cultivated for the first time in history in this arboretum. The precious woods collection hosts those valuable timber trees that were heavily exploited in the past in many parts of the Caribbean. Special trees in this collection are bullet wood (Manilkara bidentata), nisperillo (Manilkara valenzuelana), West Indian satin wood (Zanthoxylum flavum) lignumvitae (Guaiacum officinale) and false mastic (Sideroxylon foetidissimum) to name a few.  Overall, the arboretum currently holds 159 plant species and keeps slowly adding more species to its cultivated repertoire.