Dilip Walse Patil

Scientific Name : Bombax ceiba L.

Category : Angiosperms

Status : Alive

Habit : 10-30m tall, perennial, large-sized, deciduous tree. Stem : Woody, solid, erect, columnar trunk, grey, glabrous bark with hard conical black prickles, delicate branches cylindrical, glabrous, smooth with distinct nodes and internodes. Leaves : Compound, digitate, leaflets 2-7, dorsiventral, entire, unicostate reticulate venation, oval or lanceolate, acute at the base, with a sharp point at the apex, petiolate, stipulate (free lateral and caducous), alternate, pentastichous. Inflorescence : Solitary or cluster of several extra-axillary flowers. At the time of flowering, the tree becomes almost leafless. Flowers : Complete, pedicellate, bract caducous, actinomorphic, bisexual, pentamerous, hypogynous, cyclic, epicalyx absent. Calyx made up of sepals 5, gamosepalous, cup-shaped, persistent, fleshy, leathery, greenish-purple, valvate. Corolla made up of petals 5, polypetalous, scarlet, twisted. Petals fleshy, sessile, entire, oblong, 2-3" long, tomentose and covered with stellate hairs on both sides. Stamens numerous (about 70), polyadelphous, forming staminal groups or bundles, one staminal bundle around the carpels while 5 bundles towards the periphery alternating with petals, filaments exerted, facing the centre, quadrangular, pale yellow, shining, containing mucilaginous colourless juice, anthers long, monothecous, reniform, purple-brown, dehiscence longitudinal, extrorse. Gynoecium composed of 5 carpels, syncarpous, superior, pentalocular, 2-4 ovules in each locule, axile placentation, style simple, pentangular, glabrous, apical end diving into parts, basal half whitish-pink, stigmas 5, scarlet. Fruit : An oblong, 4-5" long, loculicidal capsule. Seeds : Gglabrous, with wooly fibrous outgrowths of silky hairs. Flowering and Fruiting Time : February-March Significance : Roots yield a medicine used in impotency. Fibres are used in filling cushions. Wood is used in preparing match boxes and match sticks.