Ceiba pentandra (L.) Gaertn.

• Authority

  Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.

• Family

  Malvaceae

• Scientific Name

  Ceiba pentandra (L.) Gaertn.

• Description

  
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  Species Description - As the largest and most conspicuous tree in Porto Rico, with widely spreading stout branches sometimes shading large areas of ground, the massive trunk expanded into immense buttresses toward the base, the palmately divided leaves falling away before the densely clustered, beautiful flowers appear, the Silk-cotton Tree is of especial interest. It is widely distributed nearly throughout tropical America and in the Old World tropics, in Porto Rico growing usually as isolated trees in forests, on hillsides, and along streams, as also on Vieques. The soft, light brown wood is weak, light in weight, not durable, used for boats, tubs, basins and in construction; the woolly seeds, whence the English name, are used for stuffing pillows, and the tree is sometimes planted for shade. Only one species grows in Porto Rico. Ceiba (aboriginal name, accepted for this genus by the French botanist Adanson in 1763) consists of about 12 species of trees, mostly natives of tropical America. They have alternate, stalked, palmately divided, deciduous leaves, and spiny trunks and branches. The rather large flowers are clustered, with a 5-lobed calyx, and 5 petals; the stamens form a 5-divided column, each division bearing 8 or 3 anthers; the 5-celled ovary contains many ovules, the style bears 5 stigmas. The fruit is a many-seeded, 5-valved, large capsule, the seeds woolly. Ceiba pentandra (5 stamen-divisions) is recorded as sometimes attaining height of 60 meters or more, but no trees of the species in Porto Rico are known to have reached more than about one-half that height; the immense basal buttresses of large trees are very conspicuous, the trunk and branches short-spiny. The stalks of the smooth leaves vary from 5 to 15 centimeters long; there are from 5 to 7, oblong, or oblanceolate, thin, pointed, sometimes toothed leaflets from 8 to 15 centimeters long. The flowers are densely clustered, usually appearing on the stout twigs before the leaves; the individual ones stalked; the obconic calyx is about 15 millimeters long, the brownish-red petals about twice as long. The oblong, woody capsule is from 8 to 12 centimeters long.

• Discussion

  Ceiba Silk-cotton Tree Family Bombax Family Bombax pentandrum Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 511. 1753. Ceiba pentandra Gaertner, De Frutibus et Seminibus Plantarum 2: 244.1791.