Trees usually large, often deciduous; trunk thick, often buttressed, sometimes spiny. Leaves alternate; stipules inconspicuous, caducous; petiole pulvinate; leaf blade simple or palmately compound, often with stellate hairs or scales. Inflorescence axillary, 1 or 2-flowered, sometimes more-flowered, occasionally cauliflorus. Flowers large and showy, often appearing before the flush of new leaves, commonly bracteate, complete, bisexual, actinomorphic, occasionally zygomorphic, pentamerous. Epicalyx of 3 bracts, inconspicuous, caducous. Calyx shortly cylindrical, truncate or irregularly 3-5 deeply lobed, lobes slightly imbricate, sometimes splitting. Petals 5, free, elongated, contorted; corolla sometimes absent. Stamens usually numerous, rarely 3-15, free or united, staminal tube adnate at the base with petals and falling off as a unit; anthers reniform to linear, monothecous, rarely bithecous, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, rarely dehiscence by pores; staminodes absent or present. Carpels usually 2-5, rarely more, syncarpous; ovary superior, 2-5- many-locular, placentation axile; ovules 2- more per loculus, erect; style simple, capitate or lobed; stigmas 1-5. Fruit a 5-valved loculicidal dehiscent capsule, sometimes hard and indehiscent, many-seeded, with seeds often embedded in endocarp hairs; sometimes fruit winged or juicy and few-seeded; occasionally seeds winged or arillate.

30 genera and about 250 species

Bombax ceiba

Ceiba speciosa