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Silk Cotton Tree, Ceiba acuminata, The Living Desert

2,039 views · Published 7 December 2012 · 1:27 · Indexed 19 October 2026

Channel: Melvin Wei · 2012 · Science & Technology

The silk cotton tree is a common tree in the tropical deciduous forests of Mexico, extending into adjacent oak woodland and thornscrub. The first feature of this tree that people will notice is the thick spikes on the main trunk and the very sharp spikes on the branches. The degree of prickliness is highly variable and some trees may have almost smooth trunks and branches. Nevertheless, the silk cotton tree is a beautiful tree! It has a trunk that is not all that thick. The silk cotton tree reaches up to 9 meters in height.

The nocturnal flowers open in May and June and are pollinated by bats. Large oval fruits hang on the trees until winter, when they split open with an audible pop. The seeds are embedded in a large mass of cottony kapok fibers that look sort of like silk, hence the name silk cotton tree. This tree is used for landscaping, but is not frost tolerant, so it must be planted only in areas that never see freezing, or at least not for more than a day.

I bet the ancients who walked by, such as the Aztecs, looked at the spikes on this tree and thought to themselves, "INSTANT WAR CLUB!"

Silk Cotton Tree, Ceiba acuminata, The Living Desert

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