anyone know Bombax ceiba (red silk cotton tree)?

[Geoff]

I am trying to work out if some photos of this plant uploaded elsewhere are correct or not. I think some people are mistaking Ceiba speciosa for this plant when not in flower. I know young plants have spines, but knobby and trunks I have seen are always grey, never green... this look like Bombax ceiba to you?

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/339638/

[The Silent Seed]

I'll be interested in watching this thread - I have a few plants that are in this complex, but each has different characteristics - hopefully somebody can help properly ID which is which.

Example 1: Green trunk with thorns.

Example 2: Green with no thorns.

Example 3: Tan/Brown with thorns

Example 4: Tan/Brown with no thorns. (But not as tan as my known Bombax malabaricum trees.)

Example 5: (Sold - but it has a yellowish trunk, no thorns - this one was a known Bombax petandra.)

I bought representatives of all of the above - not sure how variable these things are - but all have the same leaves. If needed, I can take a closer look at whether the leaves have any teeth or not. None are flowering age yet.

[fastfeat]

I am trying to work out if some photos of this plant uploaded elsewhere are correct or not. I think some people are mistaking Ceiba speciosa for this plant when not in flower. I know young plants have spines, but knobby and trunks I have seen are always grey, never green... this look like Bombax ceiba to you?

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/339638/

The tree pictured by gardn_whisperer (and the one following it in Tucson) are both Ceiba speciosa.

[Geoff]

that's what I suspected. Googling does no good as just about anything can end up under google images. But I had never seen a Bombax ceiba with green trunk or sharp spines.... just the thick, dull grey ones. I see these green-trunked plants on the internet but never in flower (at least identified as B ceiba). I may have to have those images moved. Thanks.

[Loxahatchee Adam]

From what I have seen, the ceiba speciosa (and related species & cultivars with orchid-like flowers) tend to have more have serrated leaves.

Ceiba pentandra almost always have smooth-edged leaves

Both of these ceiba species have nearly identical spikes and usually green trunks, sometimes striated.

Bombax ceiba have the darkest of the trunks and tend to not have a purely conical spine. There is almost somewhat of a base around it. They also have non-serrated leaves.

Ceiba speciosa

Ceiba pentandra leaves

Bombax ceiba

[Cedric]

Cant help much here. We have these as street trees here many many. They are grey and silky silky smooth trunked as mature trees and spiny knobbly green as young trees but smooth green between the thorns. The girth on these is very very big even when quite small, they grow very tall as well. Flowers in bright orange, dark red, pastle salmon. Far as I know its Seiba we have.

[mnorell]

LASCA was going crazy planting these things around the arboretum years ago, I think they had started trialing them in the '60s or '70s, and they did remarkably well despite the frosts/freezes experienced in the San Gabriel Valley area, though a good slam into the '20s would really knock them back. I remember those waxy red flowers and the trunks/branches being brown, never green. I can't really remember the spikes as being prominent...if they were there they were much reduced as compared to the typical Chorisia speciosa. I never, ever saw them planted anywhere else in Los Angeles...only at the arboretum. I don't think I ever even saw one at the Huntington. They really weren't that showy, certainly nothing compared to the Floss Silk, but I always thought it very odd indeed that they never caught on at all.

[fastfeat]

LASCA was going crazy planting these things around the arboretum years ago, I think they had started trialing them in the '60s or '70s, and they did remarkably well despite the frosts/freezes experienced in the San Gabriel Valley area, though a good slam into the '20s would really knock them back. I remember those waxy red flowers and the trunks/branches being brown, never green. I can't really remember the spikes as being prominent...if they were there they were much reduced as compared to the typical Chorisia speciosa. I never, ever saw them planted anywhere else in Los Angeles...only at the arboretum. I don't think I ever even saw one at the Huntington. They really weren't that showy, certainly nothing compared to the Floss Silk, but I always thought it very odd indeed that they never caught on at all.

IMHO, a most under-utilized (large) tree in SoCal. They're stronger-wooded than Ceiba speciosa and they bloom in late winter/early spring in SoCal, well away from Ceiba season. I have yet to see any blooms get hit by late frosts tho.

I think the chief limitation to their distribution has been (until recently) that most propagation had been done by grafting/budding onto Ceiba. No seed produced in CA (or FL, for that matter, I believe). Not sure who grafted the LASCA trees; possibly in-house off the older (seed-grown) one on Tallac Knoll. So trees have been very slow to trickle out of the Arboretum to other facilities, let alone to nurseries and the general public. Fortunately, seed is becoming available (sets in Hawaii) and sprouts rather readily. (I have it on good authority that a fat, seed-grown 5g is going in at Fullerton Arboretum very soon.)

One other interesting note is on the flower shape. The LA Arboretum trees, as well as the one in the employee parking area at Fairchild (below), have simple, cup-shaped flowers:

But trees at the terminus of I-95 in Miami have much more ruffled flowers. These seem to really add to the bulk of color per branch and per tree. Not sure if this form is selected or just within the range of variability?

[Silas_Sancona]

Agree with Ken, a spectacular tree which should be seen more often around SoCal and IMO, is at least a trial- worthy species in warm spots further north. Eventual size in residences with small yards might be the only limiting factor.

As far as seed production goes, wonder if a given specimen's age and/or how many trees are in close proximity to one another plays a factor. There are several trees I regularly pass around town and have noticed no pods on the widely separated specimens closest to me while several trees growing on the Bradenton Herald's property at 41 and Manatee Ave have and are producing pods/seed. One of my mom's doctors are in a near by medical complex and have seen seedling specimens around the area when taking here to appointments. Noticed pods developing on both the largest and some smaller specimens also.

Zooming in using G.E. street view, one can see numerous ripened/opened pods at the branch ends at the top of the largest tree there.

As far as growing from seed, been told that grafting results in flowers faster/ seed grown specs. taking 4-6? years to flower given good growing conditions.

Wonder how this tree would fare in Phoenix..

-Nathan-

[mnorell]

I do remember some ruined flowers/buds at LASCA after freezes in the '80s and '90s. But it is quite frosty at LASCA, and only Tallac Knoll is reasonably protected most winters. Many of those Bombax at LASCA were planted out in an exposed plain west of the admin buildings back in those days...not sure what is there currently as I haven't been to the arboretum in about a decade.

Another problem I think is that they read as oddities to most people. And there are other readily available choices in waxy flowered, winter-flowering trees there, such as the oriental magnolias, and it is of course an uphill climb to dislodge old favorites from the public's, and the nurseryman's, go-to lists. Look how long it took for Chorisia and those two Tabebuia species to become commonplace in SoCal...probably forty years of diligence on the part of LASCA and other determined parties.

But I do think B. ceiba could find a niche closer to the coast in areas where there's more of a taste for subtropical and tropical design, and the unusual in general. But heat-accumulation issues might affect flowering. I don't remember seeing any at UCLA, nor at Disneyland. Both of those places tend to have the rarer tropical species or have trialed them at some point...that absence may (or may not) say something about performance in the dominant chill of coastal zones. Certainly if there have been propagation issues, that could be the reason. Some of these really interesting plants just never make it for that fact alone. I still think it remains a great loss that, when Evans & Reeves closed, Talauma hodgsonii effectively disappeared from the market (and landscapes) in SoCal. Only they had the determination, methodology and patience to propagate that magnificent tree.