The natural habitat of the silk floss tree is the north-east of Argentina, east of Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and southern Brazil. It is resistant to drought 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 also studded with thick, sharp conical prickles which 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 when leaves are absent; with age it turns to gray.
Leaves, stems, and flowers
The branches tend to be horizontal and are also covered with prickles. The leaves are composed of five to seven long leaflets. The flowers are creamy-whitish in the center and pink towards the tips of their five petals. They measure in diameter and their shape is superficially similar to hibiscus flowers. Their nectar is known to attract insect pollinators, as well as hummingbirds. C. speciosa flowers are in bloom between February and May, but can also bloom at other times of the year. 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 America habitat.
Ceiba speciosa Flowers Closeup
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 or silk.
Uses
The cotton inside the capsules, although not of as good quality as that of the kapok tree, has been used as stuffing. 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. The silk floss 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 safety buffer zones, especially around the trunks, in order to- protect people and domesticated animals from its prickles. Ceiba speciosa is added to some versions of the hallucinogenic drink Ayahuasca.
