not available
Description: Ceiba pentandra are large to immense trees that may grow to heights of about 20 meters (~200 ft), adding 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 smoother 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 showy flowers are bell-shaped with five white to pinkish petals. These inflorescences produce a pungent odor that attracts pollinating bats. The thick woody fruit pods contain about 200 small, brown seeds. With a multitude of flowers, a single kapok tree may 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 is now found in various areas of Micronesia including 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.
General Uses: Kapok (Ceiba pentandra) has been referred to as “A Super-Tree” because of its ability to reach immense size and its multipurpose use by people. It is avaluable tree in many tropical countries proving wood, oil and food, and the long seed hairs are used for insulation and stuffing. Kapok bark has been used in areas of Nigeria and India to treat diabetes. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) also eat kapok flowers and fruit, and, interestingly, a group of chimps in Sierra Leone invented stick tools to protect their feet and other parts of their bodies from the young tree’s sharp thorns; “this form of tool use is the first recorded case of habitually used tools that can be justifiably categorized as being ‘worn’ by any known wild population of Pan troglodytes” (Alp 1997:45).
Uses by Island or Island Group: In Micronesia, Ceiba 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: Ceiba pentandra is known in Palau as Kalngebard or Kerrekar ngebard. The soft white fibers found in the seed pods of this alien spiny tree have been used extensively in more recent times in the Palau Islands as substitute for cotton for filling beds, blankets and pillows.
Uses in Yap: Ceiba pentandra is known in Yap as Batte ni ga 'ken or Batey.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 in Yap).
Uses in the Marianas Islands: Ceiba pentandra is known in the Mariana Islands as Algodon (derived from Spanish for cotton), Alogodon de Manila or Kapok. This alien tree, probably introduced by the Spanishwas 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 [as well as] 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, 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: Ceiba pentandra is known in Chuuk as Kkóton or Kkaton (i.e., “cotton”). It was apparently introduced to this almost atoll in the 20th century where 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 Ceiba pentandra, known as Poupou on Namoluk,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: Ceiba pentandra, known in Pohnpeian as Koatun (i.e., “cotton”), was introduced into 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 on this island, with some medicinal use, e.g., 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, Ceiba 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, who referred to a “number of large mature [C. pentandra] trees growing behind the BPC workers compound at Anteeren near Tabwewa” on Banaba, indicated that the “cotton-like kapok fibers [were] formerly used on this island to stuff mattresses and pillows, but now mainly replaced by foam rubber.”
Uses in Nauru: Ceiba 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).