Wikipedia

Ceiba

Taxobox
name = "Ceiba"


image_caption = "Ceiba pentandra" leaves and fruit
regnum = Plantae
unranked_divisio = Angiosperms
unranked_classis = Eudicots
unranked_ordo = Rosids
ordo = Malvales
familia = Malvaceae
genus = "Ceiba"
genus_authority = Mill.
subdivision_ranks = Species
subdivision = About 10-20 species, including: "Ceiba aesculifolia" "Ceiba glaziovii" "Ceiba insignis" "Ceiba pentandra" "Ceiba rosea"
"Ceiba speciosa" "Ceiba trichistandra"|

"Ceiba" (includes Chorisia) is the name of a genus of many species of large trees found in tropical areas, including Mexico, Central and South America, The Bahamas, Belize and the Caribbean, West Africa, and Southeast Asia. Some species can grow to 70 meters tall or more, with a straight, largely branchless trunk that culminates in a huge, spreading canopy, and "buttress roots" that can be taller than a grown person. The best-known, and most widely cultivated, species is Kapok, "Ceiba pentandra".

Recent botanical opinion incorporates "Chorisia" within "Ceiba", raising the number of species from 10 to 20 or more, and puts the genus as a whole within the family Malvaceae.

"Ceiba" species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) species including the leaf-miner "Bucculatrix ceibae" which feeds exclusively on the genus.

In culture, history

The tree figures in the mythologies of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, in particular that of the Maya civilization, where the concept of the central world tree is often depicted as a ceiba trunk, which connects the planes of the Underworld ("Xibalba"), the skies and the terrestrial realm.

The Honduran city of La Ceiba was named after a particular ceiba tree that grew down by the old docks. The Puerto Rican town of Ceiba is also named after this tree. Ceiba is also the national tree of both Guatemala and Puerto Rico.

In 1525, Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés ordered the hanging of Aztec emperor Cuauhtemoc from a Ceiba tree after overtaking his empire.

In 1898, the Spanish army in Cuba surrendered to the United States under a ceiba, which was named the Tree of Peace ("Arbol de la Paz"), outside of Santiago de Cuba.

"Ceiba insignis" and "Ceiba speciosa" are added to some versions of the hallucinogenic drink Ayahuasca. [ [http://www.serendipity.li/dmt/hoasca.html#tbl1 Ayahuasca Analogues] ]

Ceibo

Ceiba should not be confused with the vernacular name ceibo ("Erythrina crista-galli"), the national tree of Argentina and Uruguay.

ee also

*Mesoamerican world tree

External links

* [http://www.malvaceae.info/Genera/Ceiba/gallery.html Ceiba photo gallery]

References


Look at other dictionaries:

  • Ceiba — Ceiba n. a genus of tropical American trees with palmately compound leaves and showy bell-like flowers. Syn: genus {Ceiba}. [WordNet 1.5]… (The Collaborative International Dictionary of English)
  • Ceiba pentandra — Kapok Ka pok", . [Prob. fr. the ative ame.] (Bot.) A silky wool derived from the seeds of {Ceiba petadra} (sy. {Eriodedro afractuosum}), a bombaceous tree of the East ad West Idies. [Webster 1913…
  • ceiba — ou Etymology: Spaish, probably from Taio ceíba Date: 1764 1. a massive tropical tree (Ceiba petadra) of the silk-cotto family with large pods filled with seeds ivested with a silky floss that yields the fiber kapok 2.… (New Collegiate Dictionary)