Palo campeche or Haematoxylum campechianum

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Haematoxylum campechianum in a 19th-century botanical guide (public domain).
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Adrian Masters

Part of the mystique of the Spanish Habsburg court was its signature ‘crow’s wing’ black clothing. This had a deep, lustrous blue tint and lacked the brownish shade of earlier dyes, including oak apple blacks. A major source of Spain’s rich black hues came to Europe from the faraway Yucatán peninsula, where in the mid to late 1500s Mayans, Spaniards and other groups harvested palo, especially in its namesake Campeche region. This tree grows best in tropical lowlands, especially where rivers and marshes meet hillsides. Palo is gnarly and bush-like, with flaky bark, normally growing only to some 25 feet. It sprouts heart-shaped leaves and racemes of small yellow flowers.

Further reading
  • Colomer, J.L., and A. Descalso (eds.) (2014) Spanish Fashion at the Courts of Early Modern Europe, vol. 2 (Madrid: CEEH).
  • Contreras Sánchez, A. (1990) Historia de una tintórea olvidada: el proceso de explotación y circulación del palo de tinte, 1750–1807 (Mérida: Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán).
  • Cooper, M. (1974) Rodrigues the Interpreter: An Early Jesuit in Japan and China (New York, NY: Weatherhill).
  • Elliott, J.H. (1990) Imperial Spain, 1469–1716 (London: Penguin Books).
  • Harvey, J. (1995) Men in Black (New York, NY: Columbia University Press).
  • Jarvis, M.J. (2010) In the Eye of All Trade: Bermuda, Bermudians, and the Maritime Atlantic World, 1680–1783 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press).
  • McDonald, K.P. (2018) ‘“Sailors from the woods:” Logwood cutting and the spectrum of piracy’, in The Golden Age of Piracy: The Rise, Fall,and Enduring Popularity of Pirates, edited by Head, 50–74 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press).
  • Netherton, R., and G.R. Owen-Crocker (eds.) (2007) Medieval Clothing and Textiles, vol. 3 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press).
  • Pastoureau, M. (2008) Black: The History of a Color (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
  • Record, S.J., and R.W. Hess (1943) Timbers of the New World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).
  • Richmond Ellis, R. (2012) They Need Nothing: Hispanic-Asian Encounters of the Colonial Period (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).
  • Roquero, A. (2006) Tintes y tintoreros de América (Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura).
  • Tiesler, V., and M.C. Lozada (eds.) (2018) Social Skins of the Head: Body Beliefs and Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica and the Andes (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press).
  • Valentini, M.B. (1704) Museum Museorum, oder Vollständige Schau-Bühne aller Materialen und Specereyen (Frankfurt am Main: Verlegung Johann David Zunners).