''Ceiba speciosa'', the floss silk tree (formerly ''Chorisia speciosa''), is a species of

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...

tree that is native to the

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

and subtropical forests of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

. It has several local common names, such as ''palo borracho'' (in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

literally "drunken stick"), or '' árbol del puente'', ''samu'ũ'' (in Guarani), or ''paineira'' (in

Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all of ...

). In Bolivia, it is called toborochi, meaning "tree of refuge" or "sheltering tree". In the USA it often is called the silk floss tree. It belongs to the same family as the

baobab ''Adansonia'' is a genus made up of eight species of medium-to-large deciduous trees known as baobabs ( or ). They are placed in the Malvaceae family, subfamily Bombacoideae. They are native to Madagascar, mainland Africa, and Australia.Trop ...

; the species ''

Bombax ceiba ''Bombax ceiba'', like other trees of the genus ''Bombax'', is commonly known as cotton tree. More specifically, it is sometimes known as Malabar silk-cotton tree; red silk-cotton; red cotton tree; or ambiguously as silk-cotton or kapok, both of ...

''; and other kapok trees. Another tree of the same

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

, '' Ceiba chodatii'', is often referred to by the same common names.

Description

The natural habitat of the floss silk tree is in the northeast of

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, east of Bolivia,

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

, and southern

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. It is resistant to

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

and moderate cold. It grows fast in spurts when water is abundant, and sometimes reaches more than in height. Its trunk is bottle-shaped, generally bulging in its lower third, measuring up to in girth. The trunk is studded with thick, sharp conical prickles that deter wild animals from climbing the trees. In younger trees, the trunk is green due to its high chlorophyll content, which makes it capable of performing

photosynthesis Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that, through cellular respiration, can later be released to fuel the organism's activities. Some of this chemical energy is stored i ...

when leaves are absent; with age it turns to gray.

Leaves, stems, and flowers

The

branch A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term ''twig'' usually ...

es tend to be horizontal and also are covered with prickles. The leaves are composed of five to seven long leaflets. The

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

s are creamy-whitish in the center and pink toward the tips of their five petals. They measure in diameter and their shape is superficially similar to

hibiscus ''Hibiscus'' is a genus of flowering plants in the mallow family, Malvaceae. The genus is quite large, comprising several hundred species that are native to warm temperate, subtropical and tropical regions throughout the world. Member species ...

flowers. Their nectar is known to attract insect pollinators and hummingbirds. ''C. speciosa'' flowers are in bloom between February and May (in its native Southern Hemisphere), but it may bloom at other times of the year, even as late as November in Florida. The flowers of the related ''C. chodatii'' are similar in form and size, but their color goes from creamy white centers to yellow tips. As a deciduous tree, it is completely bare of leaves and flowers during the winter months, especially when growing outside of its native South American habitat.

Flowers closeup

File:ไหมจุรี Ceiba speciosa IMG 9303 Photographs by Peak Hora.jpg, Macro image File:ไหมจุรี Ceiba speciosa IMG 9298 Photographs by Peak Hora.jpg File:ไหมจุรี Ceiba speciosa IMG 9777 Photographs by Peak Hora.jpg File:ไหมจุรี Ceiba speciosa IMG 9610 Photographs by Peak Hora.jpg

Fruits

The fruits are lignous ovoid capsules, long, which contain bean-sized black seeds surrounded by a mass of fibrous, fluffy matter reminiscent of

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...

silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the ...

Uses

The "cotton" inside the capsules, although not so good quality as that of the

kapok tree Kapok tree can refer to several plants Malvales with one exception with seeds that grow long hairs: *''Bombax ceiba'', an Asian tree with red flowers *''Calotropis procera'' (Asterid), a shrub with white and purple flowers, native to Asia and ...

, has been used as stuffing (

density Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the substance's mass per unit of volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' can also be used. Mathematical ...

= 0.27 g/cm³). The wood can be used to make

canoe A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using a single-bladed paddle. In British English, the ter ...

s, as

wood pulp Pulp is a lignocellulosic fibrous material prepared by chemically or mechanically separating cellulose fibers from wood, fiber crops, waste paper, or rags. Mixed with water and other chemical or plant-based additives, pulp is the major raw mate ...

, and to make

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...

. The bark has been used to make ropes. From the seeds, it is possible to obtain

vegetable oil Vegetable oils, or vegetable fats, are oils extracted from seeds or from other parts of fruits. Like animal fats, vegetable fats are ''mixtures'' of triglycerides. Soybean oil, grape seed oil, and cocoa butter are examples of seed oils, or f ...

(both edible and industrially useful). The floss silk tree is cultivated mostly for ornamental purposes. Outside of private gardens around the world, it is often planted along urban streets in subtropical areas such as in Spain, South Africa, Australia, northern New Zealand, and the southern USA, although its prickled trunks and limbs require establishing safety buffer zones around the tree in order to protect people and domesticated animals. ''Ceiba speciosa'' is added to some versions of the hallucinogenic drink

Ayahuasca AyahuascaPronounced as in the UK and in the US. Also occasionally known in English as ''ayaguasca'' ( Spanish-derived), ''aioasca'' (Brazilian Portuguese-derived), or as ''yagé'', pronounced or . Etymologically, all forms but ''yagé'' desce ...

Gallery

File:Ceiba speciosa IMG 1753.jpg File:Barrigudapaineira1.jpg, Swollen trunk File:Ceiba speciosa (70157).jpg, Detail of the trunk File:Ceiba_speciosa_R11.jpg File:C. speciosa-5.JPG File:Ceiba speciosa Puchowiec wspaniały 2023-02-24 17.jpg, Fruit File:C. speciosa-1.JPG, An open fruit pod, displaying the silk-like fibers that give the tree its name File:Ceiba_speciosa,_silk_floss_tree,_at_Huntington_Library,_Art_Collections_and_Botanical_Gardens.jpg, Winter time for a cultivated mature specimen at Huntington Library and Botanical Garden File:美人樹 Ceiba speciosa 20201006185617.jpg File:美人樹 Ceiba speciosa 20201007085650 03.jpg File:美人樹 Ceiba speciosa 20201105081642 01.jpg File:美人樹 Ceiba speciosa 20201105081642 02.jpg

References

External links

Brief description
of the tree.
Subtropicals growing in Kerikeri
- A report on ''C. speciosa'' as cultivated in New Zealand.

- Many pictures of trees of the genus ''Ceiba''. {{Taxonbar, from=Q1031120 speciosa Trees of Argentina Trees of Brazil Trees of Paraguay Flora of the Amazon Flora of the Atlantic Forest Garden plants of South America Ornamental trees Trees of Peru