El Yunque National Forest quarter design
The final approved design for the first 2012 National Park quarter was announced by the U.S. Mint at a special ceremony in Washington, D.C. on December 8, 2011. The new quarter design honors El Yunque National Forest, located on the U.S. Territorial island of Puerto Rico and the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. National Forest System.
The coin’s reverse design features an endangered Coqui tree frog perched on a leaf, and a threatened Puerto Rican parrot behind an epiphyte plant with other tropical flora in the background. El Yunque is home to thousands of native plants including over 150 fern species and 240 tree species, as well as many small animals found nowhere else on Earth. The 28,000-acre rainforest became a federally protected site in 1903.
Inscriptions on the coin’s reverse include the site name (EL YUNQUE), location (PUERTO RICO), year of issue (2012) and motto E PLURIBUS UNUM. The obverse side features a restored version of the George Washington portrait introduced on U.S. quarters in 1932. The El Yunque quarter will be followed by other 2012 issues honoring Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico, and Acadia, Hawai’i Volcanoes and Denali National Parks in Maine, Hawaii and Alaska respectively.
