TROPICAL TREES



The kapok cotton flowers which come out of pods



Kapok Tree Pods

 We have become interested in the trees here in Ajijic. There is a large tree in our yard with a huge trunk covered with spikes or thornes. The branches are also covered with thornes. This time of the year (dry season) it is losing its leaves and is almost bare but for the “cotton” balls festooned all over it. Very interesting. I guess it has a pink flower - then developes a large green pod similar in shape to an avocado but larger. The pod eventually opens up and out comes this large white ball of cotton or kapok.


When I was a young child in Virginia, I remember my father using kapok to caulk our wooden boats but it was strange to see it growing on very tall trees. I asked Mexican’s what the name of tree was and they didn’t know the name so I looked to the internet.

The Kapok tree or the Cotton tree or Ceiba or silk tree grows mostly in tropical areas. In the Amazon there is a type of Kapok tree but it has a smooth trunk. The people there like the tree because they can hollow out the trunk to make canoes. They use parts of the pod for pipes and wrap their poison arrow tips with the cotton material. The seeds in the cotton balls are eaten or used for their oil.  I do believe that the pillows on our bed are stuffed with wads of kapok.

I noticed these trees on the way to Mazatlan, in the distance closer to the ocean than to the highway and they piqued my curiosity. Then to my surprise there is one in our back yard.

In Guatamala the Ceiba tree is the national tree. I have seen the Ceiba tree there, it is very, very large with a huge smooth trunk. I had no idea it was related to this tree because at that time I didn’t see the ball of kapok. The only unusual thing about the Ceiba I saw in Guatamala was the size of the trunk and the fact that it looked as if it had to have buttresses on the trunk to hold the tree up.

There are several other trees that I have taken photos of and need to look up on the internet. This area of Mexico, I am told, is tropical and there are many plants here that I have not seen in other parts of Mexico.

As I walk to the market on Wednesdays, I pass by a tree which is bare of leaves but has flowers which are similar to the ones on the Mimosa Trees I remember growing in Virginia. Flowers which are pink and fluffy, like a filmy brush. It has an interesting trunk - various greens in up and down stripes.

Then another tree has a flower that looks like an orchid. Of course, there are the Jacaranda trees with the purple flowers, the Flame trees with the bright red-orange blossoms and the Primavera trees with the elaborate brillant yellow flowers. All of these should be in bloom by the end of February. I have been told that the “rainy or wet” months are the most beautiful here because of all the flowers that bloom. Maybe I should come down in May, June and July. What a good idea.