Bixa orellana

The red color of Latin American cooking comes from the seeds of this native shrub, and Indigenous peoples of the Americas have used it for centuries as body paint. It's such a good natural dye that industry uses it to color cheese, butter and margarine. Pink flowers and spiky red pods make it as pretty as it is useful, and it grows fast into a living fence.

Native to our region and very easy to grow: almost any well-drained soil (pH 5.5–7.5) in full sun. It grows fast, takes hard pruning and withstands droughts of up to 4 months, though it yields best with well-spread rain and a dry season to ripen the seed. It starts fruiting from about 2 years, with full crops at 3–4 years. Planting distance: 2–4 m.

The red seeds give arroz con achiote its color and gentle flavor. Fry them briefly in oil and strain it, keeping the colored oil, or grind them with other spices into a paste: Yucatán's recado rojo, the base of cochinita pibil, is achiote. The pods are harvested once they dry and split, and the seeds are stored dry.

In folk tradition, a leaf decoction is used as a gargle for sore throats, and in baths to ease aching muscles and bring down fever. It is also used traditionally for digestion and against intestinal parasites.

A secondary species of the medium stratum. Because it takes pruning so well, it makes an ideal living fence or productive hedge along plot edges, and the prunings feed the soil. Its flowers draw bees, and it regrows strongly after every cut.