or SILK-COTTON TREE; a genus of the polyandria order, belonging to the monodelphia class of plants.

Species. 1. The celiba, with a prickly stalk. 2. The pentandra, with a smooth stalk. 3. The hentaphylum, with leaves cut into seven parts. The first and second sorts grow naturally in both the Indies, where they arrive at a great magnitude, being some of the largest trees in these parts; insomuch that Bolman says he has seen in Guinea, trees of this kind so widely diffused that 20,000 armed men might stand under the branches of one. They generally grow with very straight stems. Those of the first sort are armed with short strong spines; but the second hath very smooth stems, which in the young plant are of a bright green; but after a few years they are covered with a grey or ash-coloured bark, which turns brown as the tree grow older. The branches toward the top are garnished with leaves composed of five, seven, or nine oblong smooth little leaves, which are spear-shaped, and join to one common centre at their base, where they adhere to the long footstalk. The flower-buds appear at the end of the branches; and soon after the flowers expand, which are composed of five oblong purple petals, with a great number of stamens in the centre: when these fall off, they are succeeded by oval fruit as large. large as a swan's egg, having a thick ligneous cover, which when ripe opens in five parts, and is full of a dark short cotton, including many roundish seeds as large as small peas. The cotton of the third sort is of a fine purple colour, but the size of the tree is not particularly mentioned by botanical writers. Besides these species, Mr Miller mentions another which he saw in the gardens of the late duke of Richmond at Goodwood, and was raised from seeds which came from the East Indies. The stem was very straight and smooth, the leaves were produced round the top upon very long footstalks, each being composed of seven or nine narrow silky small lobes, joined at their base to the footstalk in the same manner as the first and second; but they were much longer and reflected backward, so that at first sight it appeared very different from either of them.

Culture. These plants, being natives of warm climates, must always be kept in a house. They are raised from seeds procured in the capsules from the places where they grow naturally. They are to be sown in the spring, in pots of light earth, plunged in a substantial hot-bed of dung or tan, where the plants will appear in three or four weeks. They must then be placed separately in small pots, plunging them in the bark-bed, giving them shade and water, and shifting them occasionally into larger pots with fresh earth. They must be watered plentifully in summer, but moderately in winter.

Uses. The dark short cotton of the first two species is used by the poorer inhabitants of those places where such trees grow to stuff pillows or chairs, but is generally deemed unwholesome to lie upon. The beautiful purple down of the third is spun, wrought into clothes, and worn without being dyed any other colour, by the inhabitants of the Spanish West Indies, where the tree naturally grows. Large piroques, or canoes fit to carry a sail, are made both at Senegal, and in America, of the trunk of the silk-cotton tree, the wood of which is very light, and found unfit for any other purpose. In Columbus's first voyages, says Miller, it was reported, that a canoe was seen at Cuba made of the hollowed trunk of one of these trees, which was 95 palms long, of a proportional width, and capable of containing 150 men.