A tropical climbing shrub or vine of the Rubiaceae family, producing small white flowers and berries, used medicinally in Caribbean regions.
From Nahuatl (Aztec language) 'chiyoco' (bird poison) via Spanish colonial contact with Central and South America. The scientific name uses Latinized form of the indigenous term.
Chiococca proves how colonialism brought indigenous plant knowledge into European science—the Nahuatl name traveled through Spanish traders into Latin botanical nomenclature, carrying thousands of years of indigenous medicine forward.
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