This small tree is in the Living Desert Botanical Garden in Palm Desert, California. Can you help us identify it? Check out the major thorns on the trunk--they kind of resemble Chorisia speciosa in form. The thorns are conical.
I agree, the thorns are very similar, but this tree has an overall height of about 15-20 feet. The Ceiba really reminds me of the Chorisia (greenish bark, thorns, general branching form, open canopy), but this one is a much smaller scale and doesn't have green bark. Any other thoughts?
As an aside - Chorisia is now included in Ceiba: http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/taxon.pl?10326
Not sure where you have been looking, but you may want to add quotes to the name: "Ceiba pentandra". It narrows the search results. C. pentandra remained fairly small when grown in a greenhouse in northern California. Very possibly it's mature height is smaller when grown in cooler climates. Having dug around using the above search, it looks like the leaves are a good match to C. pentandra. Perhaps this is a mature plant? My guess is that the space between the conical elements is gobbled up over time. Fascinating. Thanks for posting it. Digging around exposed me to photos of the plant's wonderful flowers.
No way is that a mature specimen. Adult C. pentandra outgrow their thorns and develop a marked bottle trunk and large buttress roots, which makes them extremely distinctive.
Is it possible that they will never reach a mature state in some regions? And how long does it take for them to show adult traits? fyi, no other species matched this in a fairly deep google search. That said, I support that it may NOT be C. pentandra. Those conical protrusions, though, are a VERY distinctive trait. Not many occurances in the plant kingdom. It was fascinating to see how extensively the feature is used in fine art of the region (found while on this deep google journey...).
It is entirely possible that the trees never will reach a mature state in some regions, although Palm Desert, California, is very similar to the coastal dry forests where they grow naturally here in Ecuador. However, with Ceiba (at least in Ecuador) we're talking lifespans of several centuries, if not milennia, and here at least a tree is considered 'mature' after about 75-100 years, but generally it's gauged by the loss of the thorns. The conical thorns, along with the distinctive leaf shape, are the telltales for C. pentandra, but it's a HIGHLY variable species. I'll tag a few photos on to this post, of trees in varying stages of maturity for comparison's sake - the environment in which they grow (moisture-wise), the altitude, the age of the tree, and what the tree perceives as possible competition on the tree itself (generally, this is scandent plants which would choke a young tree), all seem to have an effect on how thorny it gets, and when it starts to lose the thorns. IE - C. pentandra from the coastal dry forest look very different from C. pentandra from the interandean valleys, and different again from those found in the upper Amazon basin. The first photo is the trunk of a specimen growing in the Amazon basin city of Macas (elevation 600 m, humidity 90%, perceived competitors: scandent Aroids). According to city records, it's about 85 years old. The second is of adult trees in coastal dry forest near Manta (elevation 10 m, humidity 45%, perceived competitors: Kudzu and Passiflora). The trunks of these trees aren't actually green, they're greyish - the green is a companion algae that appears only on coastal trees and seems to offer them some sun protection. The third is an adult tree in coastal wet forest near Daule (elevation 50 m, humidity 85%, perceived competitors: Kudzu). The fourth and fifth is a tree beginning its adulthood, in Quito, which is a high-altitude interandean valley (elevation 2835 m, humidity 50%, perceived competitors: scandent Aroids).
I have seen that tree in a mountain in Mexico named Tepoztlan, and some natives carve the "thorns" in a shape to resembles castels or tiny houses as artcraft to sell to tourist. They call those trees "Pochote" I am sorry I don´t have a cientific name, but I think they belong in the Bombax family
Yes, Bombax is correct. I tried to find the URL for this lovely ceramic piece inspired by the plant. Alas, simply have to share it without the full site credit. The title of the image file is "escuintla urna funeraria ceiba".
