Bombacaceae

noun

Trees, usually large, often deciduous; trunks sometimes spiny, often buttressed; bark fibrous, with mucilaginous exudates; indumentum usually stellate or tufted. Leaves alternate, spiral; stipules inconspicuous, caducous; petiole pulvinate; leaf blade often palmately compound (simple and lobed in Ochroma), margin often entire. Inflorescences axillary, 1(or 2) -flowered, rarely many-flowered. Flowers bisexual, actinomorphic, large and showy. Epicalyx of 3 bracts, inconspicuous and caducous. Calyx shortly cylindrical, truncate, or irregularly 3-5-lobed, sometimes splitting. Petals 5, joined at base with androecium and falling as one unit, imbricate. Stamens usually very many (3-15 in Ceiba) ; filaments usually united in lower half into a filament tube around style, tube sometimes lobed, with stamens in 5 groups with completely united filaments and sessile anthers; anthers usually 1-celled, apparently 2-celled and non-septate in Ceiba, sometimes many anthers united into an apparent many-celled "super-anther"; pollen usually spheroidal, ± smooth, reticulate; staminodes absent. Ovary superior, syncarpous, carpels usually 5; ovules 2 to many per locule, axile, anatropous; style 5-lobed. Fruit a 5-valved capsule, or hard and indehiscent (e.g., Adansonia), many-seeded with seeds often embedded in endocarp hairs (kapok), less often fruit winged or juicy and few-seeded. Seeds sometimes winged.