Kapok
Ceiba pentandra
- Names in the book
- Boboy, Tag.; Doldol, Vis.; Bulak kastila, Pam.
- Colours
- flowercream, pinkfibrewhite
- Native range
- Tropical Americas and West Africa
- In the Philippines, per the book
- Exceedingly common in all parts of the islands. Blooms in December.
- Family
- Malvaceae, filed in the book under Malvaceæ
- Printed as
- Eriodendron anfractuosum, DC. (Bombax pentandrum, L.)
- Sources
- Page 50 on Project Gutenberg · Wikipedia
The plant today
Ceiba pentandra is a tropical tree of the order Malvales and the family Malvaceae (previously placed in the family Bombacaceae), native to Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the northern half of South America; some authors also consider it native in western and central Africa. It is widely introduced in other tropical regions including South and Southeast Asia, where it is cultivated. The tree and the cotton-like fluff obtained from its seed pods are commonly known in English as kapok, a Malay-derived name which originally applied to the related species Bombax ceiba, a native of tropical Asia.
Excerpt from “Ceiba pentandra” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sa Tagalog
Ang bulak, koton, algodon, buboy, bulak-kahoy o kapok (Ingles: cotton, cotton wool, o cotton tree) ay isang uri ng halaman. Ginagamit ang laman ng mga bunga nito bilang malambot na palaman sa mga unan. Tinatawag na bulakan ang taniman ng bulak.
Sipi mula sa “Kapok” sa Tagalog Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Recorded in the Philippines
GBIF holds 133 records of this plant from the Philippines. The ones with map coordinates fall in 17 provinces, most often Zamboanga del Norte (28), Agusan del Sur (6), Metropolitan Manila (4), Cebu (3), Laguna (2), Negros Oriental (2), Antique (2), Surigao del Sur (2), and 9 more.
Counts from GBIF occurrence records, October 2026. They include planted trees and garden plants, and a province with no records may only lack collectors.
What the 1901 book says
A historical record, quoted as printed. Doses and remedies here are not medical advice.
Uses
The principal use made of this plant in the Philippines is to stuff the pillows with the cotton that it yields. The leaves, pounded with a little water, yield a mucilaginous juice highly prized by the natives as a wash for the hair, mixing it with gogo. The root bark is emetic in dose of 1.25 grm. The cotton yielded by this tree should be used for the same therapeutic purposes as that of gossypium, and being of an exceedingly fine fiber it would give better results. The Filipinos use it to treat burns and sores. I have often used it, being careful always to impregnate it thoroughly with some antiseptic solution. In the treatment of burns it has been my custom to envelope the part in a thick layer of this cotton, after bathing it with a tepid 1–2,000 solution of corrosive sublimate and dusting with a very fine powder of boracic acid.
Botanical description
A tree 40–50° high. Trunk somewhat thorny, the branches horizontal, arranged in stars of 3–4. Leaves compound with 7 leaflets, lanceolate, entire, glabrous. Flowers in umbels of 8 or more flowerets. No common peduncle, the individual ones long. Calyx, 5 obtuse sepals, slightly notched. Corolla, 5 fleshy petals, obtusely lanceolate and bent downwards. Stamens 5. Anthers of irregular shape, peltate, with the borders deeply undulate. Stigma in 5 parts. Pod 4–6′ long, spindle-shaped. Seeds enveloped in very fine cotton fiber.
Recent research
The most cited papers since 2022 that name this plant in the title, pulled from Europe PMC in October 2026. Titles are the authors' own and the findings have not been reviewed here.
- High-quality genomes of Bombax ceiba and Ceiba pentandra provide insights into the evolution of Malvaceae species and differences in their natural fiber development
- Bioepoxy based hybrid composites from nano-fillers of chicken feather and lignocellulose Ceiba Pentandra
- Integrative network pharmacology and molecular dynamics analysis of Ceiba pentandra compounds with experimental support for colorectal cancer therapy