Description:

• Trees with fibrous and fleshy trunks, sometimes attaining a very large girth
• Leaves alternate, simple on seedlings, digitately 3-9-foliolate on more mature plants; leaflets entire; stipules present
• Flowers ± regular, bisexual, usually solitary, large, pendulous; large bracts and bracteoles usually present
• Calyx leathery, 5-segmented or -lobed, valvate in bud
• Petals 5, adhering to base of staminal tube, large and crinkled
• Stamens many, united into a tube below; anthers reniform, 1-thecous, opening by longitudinal slits; pollen smooth
• Ovary superior, 5-10-locular, with many axile ovules in each locule; style simple; stigma 5-10-lobed
• Fruit indehiscent, woody
• Seeds many, embedded in dry, white pulp
• x = 8 (high polyploidy)

Classification Notes:

• [under Malvaceae - Bombacoideae, fide Bayer et al. (1999)]
• See note on family circumscription under Malvaceae

Nomenclature:

• Bombacaceae
  • Wild: 511 (1961)
  • Friedrich-Holzhammer: 1 (1969)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 30, species ± 250, tropical and subtropical regions of Africa and Madagascar to India, Australia and America
• Southern Africa: 1 genus, 1 species
  • *Ceiba pentandra (L.) Gaertn. (5026000), Kapok Tree, from which the Kapok fibre of commerce is derived, has been cultivated in subtropical areas and may occasionally be found as a stray in KwaZulu-Natal

References:

• BAYER, C., FAY, M.F., DE BRUIJN, A.Y., SAVOLAINEN, V., MORTON, C.M., KUBITZKI, K., ALVERSON, W.S., CHASE, M.W. 1999. Support for an expanded family concept of Malvaceae within a recircumscribed order MALVALES: a combined analysis of plastid atpB and rbcL DNA sequences. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 129
• FRIEDRICH-HOLZHAMMER, M. 1969. Bombacaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 83
• WILD, H. 1961. Bombacaceae. Flora zambesiaca 1

Resources:

• Bombacaceae genus: Adansonia