Chacaj Colorado — widely known as gumbo-limbo, copperwood, almácigo, or chaca — is instantly recognizable long before it reaches the mill. Its thin, coppery-red bark peels away in papery sheets, a trait that’s earned it the nickname “the tourist tree” for its resemblance to sunburned skin. Native across the Neotropics, from South Florida through Mexico and the Caribbean to Brazil, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, it’s a prominent presence in the Petenes mangrove ecoregion of the Yucatán, growing alongside the mangroves as a subdominant species. The wood itself is light to moderately dense, with a fine-to-medium texture and grain that runs fairly straight to irregular. Beyond the timber, this tree has a genuinely distinctive practical role in the region: cut branches root easily when simply planted in the ground, making it a traditional choice for living fence posts across Central America.