floss silk tree ceiba speciosa with fruits which are lignous ovoid capsules containing bean sized black seeds

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Floss silk tree (Ceiba speciosa) with fruits, which are lignous ovoid capsules containing bean-sized black seeds.

Floss silk tree (Ceiba speciosa), (formerly Chorisia speciosa) belongs to the family Malvaceae. Flowers are creamy-whitish in the center and pink toward the tips of their five petals. Fruits are lignous ovoid capsules, which contain bean-sized black seeds surrounded by a mass of fibrous, fluffy matter reminiscent of cotton or silk. Its trunk is bottle-shaped, generally bulging in its lower third and is studded with thick, sharp conical prickles. In younger trees, the trunk is green due to its high chlorophyll content, which makes it capable of performing photosynthesis when leaves are absent.