White silk cottontree

Ceiba pentandra, the kapok or silk-cotton tree, is a very large, fast-growing deciduous tree in the family Malvaceae (formerly Bombacaceae), native to tropical America and to tropical West Africa and cultivated throughout the tropics. It is among the tallest trees of the neotropical forest, frequently reaching 50 to 70 metres in height, with a massive cylindrical trunk to 3 metres in diameter buttressed by huge plank-like flanges at the base, smooth pale grey to greenish bark on younger stems studded with conical thorns, and a strongly tiered, horizontally spreading umbrella-shaped crown. The alternate, long-petiolate leaves are palmately compound with five to nine glabrous, lanceolate, entire to slightly toothed leaflets 7 to 20 centimetres long. White, pink or pale yellowish bell-shaped flowers 3 to 4 centimetres across are produced on bare branches in the dry season and pollinated by bats. The fruit is a leathery, pendulous, ellipsoid capsule 10 to 30 centimetres long that splits to release numerous small black seeds embedded in copious silky, buoyant, pale yellowish-brown fibre.