Issued under Cuba's state minting enterprise during the Special Period — the prolonged economic crisis that followed the Soviet collapse — this coin belongs to a flora series that served as a hard-currency earner for a government with almost no foreign exchange reserves. The pieces were sold abroad, almost never circulating domestically. Turnera ulmifolia, the yellow alder, grows widely across the Caribbean and was already established in Cuban botanical documentation long before this issue.
Issued under Cuba's state minting enterprise during the Special Period — the prolonged economic crisis that followed the Soviet collapse — this coin belongs to a flora series that served as a hard-currency earner for a government with almost no foreign exchange reserves. The pieces were sold abroad, almost never circulating domestically. Turnera ulmifolia, the yellow alder, grows widely across the Caribbean and was already established in Cuban botanical documentation long before this issue.