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Ceiba speciosa
Also called Floss Silktree
In Singapore: Silk Floss Tree (Grown in Singapore)
Ceiba speciosa is a deciduous tree from South American subtropical forests, grown mainly as an ornamental street and garden tree. Its key traits are a bottle-shaped, spiny trunk and drought tolerance once established.
Ceiba speciosa, the floss silk tree (formerly Chorisia speciosa), is a species of deciduous tree that is native to the tropical and subtropical forests of South America. It has several local common names, such as palo borracho (in Spanish literally "drunken stick"), or árbol del puente, samu'ũ (in Guarani), or paineira (in Brazilian Portuguese). 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 subfamily as the baobab; the species Bombax ceiba; and other kapok trees. Another tree of the same genus, Ceiba chodatii, is often referred to by the same common names.
The 'cotton' inside the capsules, although not so good quality as that of the kapok tree, has been used as stuffing (density = 0.27 g/cm3). The wood can be used to make canoes, as wood pulp, and to make paper. The bark has been used to make ropes. From the seeds, it is possible to obtain vegetable oil (both edible and industrially useful).
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Ceiba speciosa by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
