Ceiba pentandra

The trunk is broad with buttresses at the base. Branches are spreading, whorled and almost horizontal. The bark is gray and some varieties are covered with rounded spines. Leaves are alternate, glabrous, digitate, with 5, 7 or 9 leaflets and a slender petiole. Leaflets are 8-16 x 2-4 cm, lanceolate, acuminate, with smooth margins, bright to dark green above and glaucous beneath. Great quantities of flowers are in clusters near the ends of the twigs. Calyx is 1-1.5 cm long, cup-shaped with 5-10 shallow teeth. Petals are 5, obovate, 2-3 cm long, white to rose coloured, densely hairy on the outer surface and with unpleasant milky smell. Staminal column is united at base, dividing into 5 stamens. Pistil consists of a superior ovary with along style curved near the apex and an enlarged stigma. Fruit is a leathery, ellipsoid, pendulous capsule, 10-30 cm long, usually tapering at both ends, dehiscing by 5 valves or indehiscent. Each capsule releases 120-175 seeds embedded in copious white, pale yellow or grey woolly hairs. Seeds are dark brown, rounded, 4-6 mm in diameter.