Bombax ceiba

Species: Bombax ceiba

English Name: Red Cotton Tree

Chinese Name: 木棉

Family: Bombacaceae

Description:
Trees to 25 m tall; trunk buttressed, usually very spiny on young trees; bark gray-white; branches spreading. Stipules minute; petiole 10-20 cm; leaflets 5-7, petiolules 1.5-4 cm; blades oblong to oblong-lanceolate, 10-16 × 3.5-5.5 cm, glabrous, lateral veins 15-17 on each side of midrib, ascending, base broad or tapering, apex acuminate. Flowers solitary, terminal, ca. 10 cm in diam. Calyx cup-shaped, 2-3(-4.5) cm, abaxially glabrous, adaxially densely yellowish sericeous, calyx lobes 3-5, semi-orbicular, ca. 1.5 × 2.3 cm. Petals usually red, sometimes orange-red, obovate-oblong, 8-10 × 3-4 cm, fleshy, both surfaces stellate puberulent, but sparser adaxially. Filament tube short, filaments thicker at base than apex, outer series in 5 fascicles, each with more than 10 stamens, inner series bifid, central filaments with 10 stamens shorter, entire. Capsule ellipsoid, 10-15 × 4.5-5 cm, densely gray-white villous and stellate puberulent. Seeds many, obovate, smooth. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. summer.

Photos used under a Creative Commons license

References:

– Wu ZY, Raven PH, Hong DY (eds) (2007). Flora of China, Volume 12: Hippocastanaceae through Theaceae. Science Press, Beijing, and Missouri Bot Garden Press, St. Louis

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