1. Pachira Aublet, Hist. Pl. Guiane. 2: 725. 1775.
瓜栗属 gua li shu
Bombacopsis Pittier, nom. cons.; Bombax subg. Rhodognaphalon Ulbrich; Carolinea Linnaeus f.; Pochota Ramírez Goyena; Rhodognaphalon (Ulbrich) Roberty; Rhodognaphalopsis A. Robyns.
Trees, sometimes deciduous, spiny and/or buttressed. Leaves palmately compound; leaflets 3-11, with basal joint, sometimes petiolulate, margin entire or serrate. Flowers bisexual, solitary or 2- or 3-fascicled, axillary, pedicellate; pedicel shorter than 10 cm; bracteoles 2 or 3. Calyx cup-shaped to tubular, adaxially glabrous, truncate to lobed, often with glands abaxially, persistent, sometimes accrescent. Petals spatulate to linear, yellowish green, white, or reddish, abaxially tomentose. Stamens 90-1000 in fascicles of 7-10, connate into tube at base; anthers reniform. Ovary 5-locular; ovules many; style exserted; stigma 5-lobed. Fruit nearly oblong or nearly pyriform, woody or leathery, loculicidally dehiscent into 5 valves, inner surface long woolly. Seeds irregularly scariform-cuneate, large, to 2.5 cm, glabrous, seed coat fragile, smooth.
About 50 species: tropical America; one species (introduced) in China.
