A tropical American shrub that produces a reddish dye from its bark and is used in tanning leather.
From Spanish 'dividivi,' which itself comes from a Carib or Arawakan language of the Caribbean islands where the plant is native. The word traveled through colonial trade routes into European languages.
This plant was so valuable for leather-making that European colonial traders fought over access to it—one plant name from a Caribbean language tells the whole story of global trade, conquest, and the plants that powered the leather industry.
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