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Description: Ceiba pentandra are large to immense trees tht may grow to heights of 200 feet (60 m), can add up 13 feet (4 m) a year, and have a longevity for as long as two centuries. They develop wide buttresses at their base and large, more or less level crowns on top. Their trunks have gray bark and are usually spiny, cylindrical and smooth far up. Their leaves are large and palmately compound with 5-8 leaflets radiating from a common point on each leaf. C. pentandra trees are deciduous dropping all their leaves each year. Their large flowers are bell-shaped with five white to pinkish petals, and they produce a pungent odor that attracts pollinating bats. The thick woody fruit pods contain about 200 small, brown seeds. A single kapok tree may therefore produce up to about 800,000 seeds each year. The seed pods open while hanging on the tree and release their seeds along with many soft, silky, long, cotton-like fibers which are dispersed by the wind.
Distribution: Ceiba pentandra is reportedly native throughout a large area of the American tropics, from Mexico through Central America and south to Peru, Bolivia and Brazil, and possibly in West Africa. This large tree has also been introduced to other regions of the tropics by people and occurs throughout Micronesia in Palau, Yap, the Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. It occurs in a range of habitats from savannah to forest in a variety of soils from rich to poor but requires a dry season and sheds its leaves during periods of drought.
Uses by Island or Island Group: In Micronesia, C. pentandra is planted as an ornamental, along roadsides, or as boundary-marker tree, and its light-weight wood is utilized for light construction; in addition, its seed pod fibers have been used for stuffing pillows and mattresses.
Uses in Palau: The soft white fibers found in the seed pods of this spiny tree have been used extensively in the Palau Islands as substitute for cotton for filling beds, blankets and pillows.
Uses in Yap: The lightweight wood can be used in light construction and the fiber is used to stuff pillows and mattresses (see Falanruw 2015:54 for additional uses).
Uses in the Marianas Islands: C. pentandra was commonly cultivated on Guam by at least the end of the 19th century by which time it could be found “growing near ranches and along the roadside, sometimes used for marking the boundary between adjacent farms…and used for stuffing cushions and pillows” (Safford 1905:221). By the middle of the 20th century, Stone (1970:418) referred to C. pentandra as occurring “here and there in Guam, not attaining anything like the great size it can potentially reach.” Today in the Mariana Islands generally, this tree is found commonly or sparingly “throughout most of the high islands, including raised limestone islands, in both home gardens and in rural areas, often along roads or bordering agricultural holdings” (Clarke and Thaman 1993); and besides still being cultivated as an ornamental or boundary-marker, its relatively weak timber is utilized in light construction and its fiber for padding sleeping materials in the Mariana Islands.
Uses in Chuuk: C. pentandra was introduced in the 20th century to Chuuk where this kapok tree is known as Kkóton or Kkaton and its seed floss is used to stuff pillows (Goodenough and Sugita 1980:189).
Uses on Namoluk Atoll: According to Marshall (1975:39), the introduced, large C. pentandra, known as Poupou on this atoll,only grows “in the interior of the main islet of Namoluk where there is plenty of ground water,” and its fibers are used here for stuffing bedding materials.
Uses in Pohnpei: C. pentandra, known in Pohnpeian as Koatun, was introduced on Pohnpei “during the German and Japanese periods,” apparently “for its potential value as a fiber crop.” However, the kapok tree has primarily has been cultivated as an ornamental tree on this island, with some medicinal use as the pounded young leaf shouts are reportedly used to treat unopened boils, umwpwos sawawi (see Glassman 1952, Ragone et al. 2001, Balick et al. 2009:426).
Uses in Banaba: Thaman and Samelu (2018:57) suggested that the kapok tree, C. pentandra, known on Banaba Island as te baubau was introduced from Fiji where it is known as “vauvau, the Fijian equivalent of baubau.” Thaman and Samelu referred to a “number of large mature trees growing behind the BPC workers compound at Anteeren near Tabwewa” on Banaba, indicated that the “cotton-like kapok fibers formerly commonly used to stuff mattresses and pillows, but now mainly replaced by foam rubber.”
Uses in Nauru: C. pentandra was reportedly a Pre-World War I1 introduction into Nauru where it is known as Duwoduwo; the kapok tree is said to have been more common in the past when it was “for stuffing pillows and mattresses,” and today it is occasionally found in some places on this raised reef island, most likely cultivated but possibly self-sown (Thaman et al. 1994:106; Thaman and Samelu 2018:57).