Palo de Tinte

The Tinto grows in humid places and even in the water, it reaches 8 meters in height, has a foliage formed by small and oval leaves of 3 to 4 centimeters and yellow flowers with five petals, which have a white corolla with a great melliferous potential. In its trunk it produces “ink” that was used mainly to dye, and medicinally in treatments against colics. Its wood is appreciated in the rustic carpentry for its hardness and high resistance.

In the Mayan empire, the word “Ek” was used to refer to this tree with its red trunk and thorny branches that grew wild and abundant in the south of the state of Campeche.

Its scientific name Haematoxylum Campechianum comes from the Greek words (hemato = blood, and xylon = wood), in allusion to the ink it produces. The ancient inhabitants of the Yucatan Peninsula valued Ek for its coloring properties: they mixed the liquid obtained from its trunk with iron sulphate, and produced a pigment with which they dyed fabrics. By changing the acidity they managed to obtain 5 different colors: black, yellow, violet, dark red and purple.

The Spaniards learned its use and spread their fame all over the world, because until then the development of dark tones, like black, had been a problem in the textile industry. To impregnate it, the fabrics had to undergo complicated processes using different products in several stages.