Silk Floss Tree Bloom: FOTD Aug 3, 2023

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The cotton fibers found from Silk Floss Trees , which are called Kapok, are often used to stuff the insides of things such as pillows and a variety of other cold-weather clothing. The fibers of the Silk Floss Tree also have a hydrophobic property that allowed it to be used in the material that goes into life preservers.

The wood can be used to make canoes, as wood pulp, and to make paper. The bark has been used to make ropes. From the seeds, it is possible to obtain vegetable oil (both edible and industrially useful). The floss silk tree is cultivated mostly for ornamental purposes .

These trees can reach a potential 25 meters tall with fat and thorny bottle-shaped trunks and branches. (Information from Google.)

 

For Cee’s FOTD

8 thoughts on “Silk Floss Tree Bloom: FOTD Aug 3, 2023”

  2. Sam's avatarSam

    Beautiful~! I need to know more about this (tree~?. Is that branch across the top part of the photo part of the plant~? If so is it a cactus type of plant~? There was a tree that I remember from my time in Panama that had “stickley” branches like that but I can’t remember what the flowers looked like. It grew very tall and “stickley”~!

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    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      Sam, have another look at my post. I just added more information about the tree. There are lots of them blooming here right now. The pods for the kapok are huge and oval- shaped. I’ve done seven other blogs on the tree, so if you do a search, you should be able to find them.

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      1. Sam's avatarSam

        I am old enough to remember the Kapok. During WW-2 they asked for Kapok “fluff” to fill the life preservers because that floated. In Louisiana, we did not have Kapok, but the fluff of the thistle plant also worked, and we would pick the fluff from those things for the “war effort”.

        There were many things that kids did back then for the war effort, too bad we are not as patriotic as we were back then~! We collected “GREASE” which was left over from cooking pork, and cut the ends out of all cans, putting them inside and then smashing the sides together. All of these things were brought to school and put into special barrels. I often wonder if this was really useful or if it was a way for us to know that a terrible war was going on.

        We found an old car engine in a field near our place, three or four kids got together and put that heavy thing on my wagon and pulled it all the way into town where the “scrap iron” drive was~!

        And there were “rations” on everything from food to gas and tires, all for “the war effort”. You had a little sticker “A”, “B” etc, on your car in relation to the use you had for it.

        Make America Great Again ~? The quickest way would be to get rid of Trump and the stupid people who back him, Our government back then knew how to get us to work together, regardless of party, instead of fighting each other.
        SAM

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        1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

          You are absolutely right, Sam. The worst thing Trump has done is to split our country apart…How and illiterate, misogynistic, bigoted, selfish egomaniac could do this is so disillusioning. Now they want to “dumb-down” the country even more with their attacks on education. Is there any hope at all?

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          1. Sam's avatarSam

            Yep, and his newest lawyer sounds just like him.. I guess he has run out of qualified lawyers too..

            My month of August is filled with doctor’s visits, I hope that by the end of the month, I will be able to travel…

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