Food Plants International - Plant Fact Sheets Ceiba pentandra - Kapok, White Silk Cotton Tree
Edible Portion: Seeds, Leaves, Calyces, Flowers, Vegetable, Fruit, Oil
A very large tree with a straight trunk and height of 30-40 m. Trees can be 60 m high and the trunk 8 m around. It has large prickly buttresses near the base. The branches come out horizontally and there is a ring of them around the trunk. The leaves are compound. The leaflets spread out like fingers on a hand, with 5-8 leaflets. They are 5-18 cm long by 2-4.5 cm wide. The leaf stalk is 7-20 cm long. The leaves all fall off the tree (deciduous). Flowers are yellowish white, in clusters near the ends of branches. These hang downwards. A long seed capsule hangs from branches. It is 10-30 cm long. It splits into 5 valves. The seeds are embedded in white or grey kapok.