Spermatophyta: Dicotyledonae: Archichlamydeae

Bombacaceae - Baobab family

Bailey, L.H. & Bailey, E.Z. (1976) Hortus Third. A concise Dictionary of Plants Cultivated in the United States and Canada Macmillan Publishing Co, Inc., New York

Wild, H. (1961) Bombacaceae FZ 1(2)

Description of the family

The following description refers to Adansonia only. Tree, with an extraordinary swollen trunk. Stipules present, deciduous. Leaves alternate, simple (in young trees) or digitate (in older trees). Flowers large and showy, pendulous, solitary in leaf axils, bisexual, actinomorphic. Pedicels with 2 bracteoles. Calyx deeply 5-lobed (in ours), often with an epicalyx. Petals 5, free. Stamens numerous, united into a tube below (in ours); anthers 1-thecous. Ovary superior, 5-10-locular (in ours). Fruit woody, indehiscent (in ours).

Comment: According to the most recent taxonomic research by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG-III), this family is now included in Malvaceae. As this new concept still appears to be highly controversial we will remain to treat it as a separate family until further information is available.

Worldwide: 26 genera and 250 species, tropical, especially America.

More sample images from the Bombacaceae (Click on each image to see a larger version and details of the record)

Adansonia digitata

Bombax rhodognaphalon

Links to genera: View: living plant images - herbarium specimen images - all images for this family

Genus	Content
Adansonia L.	Description, Image
Bombax L.	Description, Image

Other sources of information about Bombacaceae:

Flora of Zimbabwe: Bombacaceae
GRIN (Germplasm Resources Information Network) taxonomy for plants report for Bombacaceae
Google: Web - Images - Scholar