Bombax ceiba

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Family Malvaceae

Taxonomy: Bombax ceiba L.

Synonyms: 6 (APC 2026-07-30)

Bombax heptaphylla Benth. (taxonomic synonym)
Bombax heptaphyllum Cav. (taxonomic synonym)
Bombax malabarica F.Muell. (taxonomic synonym)
Bombax malabaricum DC. (taxonomic synonym)
Gossampinus heptaphylla Bakh. (taxonomic synonym)
Salmalia malabaricum (DC.) Schott & Endl. (taxonomic synonym)

Distribution (APC): WA, NT, Qld

Profiles: APC, Flora of Australia, ALA, iNaturalist, NT eFlora, Florabase, ATRP

Traits

Top source datasets: Brock_1993 (11), Clarke_2015 (2), Cooper_2013 (13), Crowley_2007 (2), Gross_2005 (4), Kew_2019_1 (3), NTH_2022 (3), NTH_2023 (23), Nano_2011 (2), RussellSmith_2012 (4), Sjostrom_2006 (4), WAH_1998 (2), WAH_2022_2 (3), WAH_2023_2 (2), Wenk_2022 (2), Wenk_2023 (1), Wright_2000 (1), Zanne_2009 (1), eFLOWER_2021 (30), eFLOWER_Dun_2022 (35). See below for a full list of sources.
Summary: AusTraits contains 64 traits from 148 records in 20 datasets.

Traits by category (click to expand). For categorical traits, the values are listed. For numerical traits, the mean and range are shown.

fire response

resprouting_capacity (categorical): resprouts (4) [sources: Clarke_2015; Crowley_2007; Nano_2011; RussellSmith_2012]
post_fire_recruitment (categorical): post_fire_recruitment (1) [sources: Clarke_2015]

flower morphology

flower_colour (categorical): red_brown (1) [sources: eFLOWER_Dun_2022]
sex_type (categorical): hermaphrodite (2) [sources: Gross_2005; Sjostrom_2006]

fruit morphology

fruit_length (numerical): 91.25 mm (65-120 mm) [sources: Cooper_2013; NTH_2023]
fruit_width (numerical): 38.75 mm (20-60 mm) [sources: Cooper_2013; NTH_2023]
fruit_height (numerical): 45 mm (30-60 mm) [sources: NTH_2023]
fruit_type (categorical): capsule (4) [sources: Cooper_2013; Gross_2005; NTH_2023; Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_fleshiness (categorical): dry (3) [sources: Cooper_2013; Gross_2005; Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_dehiscence (categorical): dehiscent (4) [sources: Cooper_2013; Gross_2005; NTH_2023; Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_colour (categorical): brown (1) [sources: NTH_2023]

leaf morphology

leaf_length (numerical): 135 mm (60-230 mm) [sources: Brock_1993; NTH_2023]
leaf_width (numerical): 51.25 mm (35-80 mm) [sources: Brock_1993; NTH_2023]
leaf_shape (categorical): elliptical (1); obovate (1); ovate (1) [sources: Brock_1993; NTH_2023]
leaf_compoundness (categorical): compound (2) [sources: Brock_1993; NTH_2023]
plant_photosynthetic_organ (categorical): leaf (1) [sources: NTH_2023]

life history

plant_growth_form (categorical): tree (5) [sources: Brock_1993; Cooper_2013; NTH_2022; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
life_history (categorical): perennial (4) [sources: Brock_1993; NTH_2022; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2023]
woodiness_detailed (categorical): woody (3) [sources: NTH_2022; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
leaf_phenology (categorical): deciduous (2) [sources: Brock_1993; WAH_1998]
flowering_time (categorical): nnnnnnnyynnn (1); nnnnnnnyyynn (2) [sources: Brock_1993; Cooper_2013; WAH_1998]
seedbank_longevity_class (categorical): persistent (1) [sources: RussellSmith_2012]
bud_bank_location (categorical): basal_stem_buds (2); epicormic_buds (2) [sources: Crowley_2007; Nano_2011]

seed morphology

seed_dry_mass (numerical): 28.98 mg (3.64-52 mg) [sources: Kew_2019_1]
seed_length (numerical): 5.12 mm (5-5.5 mm) [sources: Cooper_2013; NTH_2023]
seed_width (numerical): 4 mm (4-4 mm) [sources: NTH_2023]
seed_shape (categorical): ovoid (1) [sources: NTH_2023]

stem morphology

wood_density (numerical): 0.28 mg/mm3 (0.28-0.28 mg/mm3) [sources: Zanne_2009]

whole plant morphology

plant_height (numerical): 19.38 m (5-25 m) [sources: Brock_1993; Cooper_2013; NTH_2023; WAH_2023_2]

Sources

dataset_id	n_traits	n_records	reference
eFLOWER_Dun_2022	30	35	L. Dun and H. Sauquet. “Unpublished: Floral traits for GAP taxa, University of New South Wales, Australia”. 2022.
eFLOWER_2021	27	30	J. Schönenberger, M. Balthazar, A. L. Martinez, B. Albert, C. Prieu, S. Magallon, and H. Sauquet. “Phylogenetic analysis of fossil flowers using an angiosperm-wide data set: proof-of-concept and challenges ahead”. American Journal of Botany 107.10 (2020), pp. 1433-1448. doi: 10.1002/ajb2.1538.
NTH_2023	17	23	D. of Land Resource Management and N. T. of Australia. Northern Territory Flora Online. accessed on 6 May, 2022.. 2022. url: http://eflora.nt.gov.au/.
Cooper_2013	10	13	W. Cooper and W. T. Cooper. Australian rainforest fruits. CSIRO Publishing, 2013, p. 272.
Brock_1993	9	11	J. Brock and A. Dunlop. Native plants of northern Australia. Reed New Holland, 1993. ISBN: 9781877069246.
Gross_2005	4	4	C. L. Gross. “A comparison of the sexual systems in the trees from the Australian tropics with other tropical biomes-more monoecy but why?”. American Journal of Botany 92.6 (2005), pp. 907-919. doi: 10.3732/ajb.92.6.907.
RussellSmith_2012	4	4	J. Russell-Smith, M. R. Gardener, C. Brock, K. Brennan, C. P. Yates, and B. Grace. “Fire persistence traits can be used to predict vegetation response to changing fire regimes at expansive landscape scales - an Australian example”. Journal of Biogeography 39 (2012), pp. 1657-1668. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2012.02714.x.
Sjostrom_2006	4	4	A. Sjöström and C. L. Gross. “Life-history characters and phylogeny are correlated with extinction risk in the Australian angiosperms”. Journal of Biogeography 33.2 (2006), pp. 271-290. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2005.01393.x.
Kew_2019_1	1	3	Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Seed Information Database (SID) and Seed Bank Database. 2019. url: http://data.kew.org/sid/.
NTH_2022	3	3	D. of Land Resource Management and N. T. of Australia. Northern Territory Flora Online. accessed on 6 May, 2022.. 2022. url: http://eflora.nt.gov.au/.
WAH_2022_2	3	3	Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2022. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
Clarke_2015	2	2	P. J. Clarke, M. J. Lawes, B. P. Murphy, J. Russell-Smith, C. E. Nano, R. Bradstock, N. J. Enright, J. B. Fontaine, C. R. Gosper, I. Radford, J. J. Midgley, and R. M. Gunton. “A synthesis of postfire recovery traits of woody plants in Australian ecosystems”. Science of The Total Environment 534 (2015), pp. 31-42. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.04.002.
Crowley_2007	2	2	G. Crowley, M. Gardener, and M. Marrinan. Tropical savannas fire response database. 2007. url: [www.landmanager.org.au](www.landmanager.org.au).
Nano_2011	2	2	C. E. M. Nano and P. J. Clarke. “How do drought and fire influence the patterns of resprouting in Australian deserts?”. Plant Ecology 212 (2011), pp. 2095-2110. doi: 10.1007/s11258-011-9988-x.
WAH_1998	2	2	Western Australian Herbarium. FloraBase: The Western Australian flora. 1998. url: http://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au.
WAH_2023_2	1	2	Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2023. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
Wenk_2022	2	2	E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant growth forms dataset”. 2022.
Wenk_2023	1	1	E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant life history dataset, University of New South Wales, Sydney”. 2023.
Wright_2000	1	1	I. J. Wright, H. T. Clifford, R. Kidson, M. L. Reed, B. L. Rice, and M. Westoby. “A survey of seed and seedling characters in 1744 Australian dicotyledon species: Cross-species trait correlations and correlated trait-shifts within evolutionary lineages”. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 69 (2000), pp. 521-547. doi: 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2000.tb01222.x.
Zanne_2009	1	1	A. E. Zanne, G. Lopez-Gonzalez, D. A. Coomes, J. Ilic, S. Jansen, S. L. Lewis, R. B. Miller, N. G. Swenson, M. C. Wiemann, and J. Chave. “Data from: Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum”. Dryad Digital Repository (2009). doi: 10.5061/dryad.234.