Sometimes you're walking along a forest trail and come upon a spot where the ground is just purple with thumbnail-sized flowers dropped from above. The tree may be so tall that you can't see where the flowers are coming from. Maybe you'll spot some of the tree's curious leaves, though, which are "digitately compound" ones with five or so leaflets all arising from atop slender petioles. Below you can see the leaves and flowers being referred to:
This handsome, sometimes-common tree really has no good English name. The Maya call it Ya'ax Niik. It's Vitex gaumeri, so I just think of it as Vitex, which is easy enough to remember. Sometimes species in the genus Vitex are known as Fiddlewoods so if you want to call it Fiddlewood no one will stop you. Vitexes are members of the Verbena Family.
Below you see that the tree's flower is beautifully adapted for pollination -- the yellow "nectar guide" on the corolla's lower lip leading from the pollinator's "landing pad" beneath stamens whose anthers daub pollen onto the pollinator's back as it enters the corolla's throat.
The IUCN's "Red List" classifies Vitex gaumeri as "endangered," probably because of tremendous habitat destruction throughout the lowland area the tree occupies, and because of overharvesting of the tree for its exceptionally fine wood. The species occurs from southern Mexico south to Honduras.