Bombacaceae

Bombacaceae

[‚bäm·bə′kās·ē‚ē]

(botany)

A family of dicotyledonous tropical trees in the order Malvales with dry or fleshy fruit usually having woolly seeds.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Bombacaceae

 

a family of dicotyledonous plants close to the family Malvaceae. Almost all Bombacaceae are tropical trees with thick, sometimes barrelshaped trunks swollen in the middle. The flowers are large, usually regular or slightly irregular, bisexual, and in most cases single. The perianth is often supported by the epicalyx. There are usually five sepals and five petals, although the latter are sometimes absent. There are five or more stamens, accreted into a tube or, more rarely, free. There are approximately 28 genera and 190 species, including such useful plants as the baobab, the durian, the ceiba tree (which yields kapok), and the balsam tree.

REFERENCE

Takhtadzhian, A. L. Sistema i filogeniia tsvetkovykh rastenii. Moscow-Leningrad, 1966.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.