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Hero Tree - Silk tree
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Silk tree is a kind of plant which bloom first then come into leaf. Between March and April, bowl-sized flowers are densely blooming on the branches. Each flower has five fleshy big petals, many pistils surround the center part of the flower, the cover of petals is milky-white-colored, the inner part is orange-colored or cardinal-red-colored. Since there are no leaves, silk trees resemble clusters of red clouds or fires. Most of them are growing straightly with a height of more than 30 meters, just like a giant man in silky luxurious clothes, grand and sublime. So GuangDong people call this silk tree "Hero Tree", and also regard it as GuangZhou city's city flower.
Silk tree is a kind of falling arbor, within the branch of silk tree. Some kind of flat conical stabs are on the skin of trunks and tresses of young trees; while trunks of old trees are big and have a smooth surface. The verticillate side branches stretch out in all direction, forming a big tree crown. Leaves are alternating, growing on each other. These palm-shaped compound leaves are composed of 5~7 long oval small leaves with some fruits in white long oval capsules. The inner part of the fruits is a kind of silky fiber. The fruit will crack when it gets ripe. The black seeds in it will fly with those battings. So we must climb it for those battings before the fruit cracks, since the tree is so tall the pattings will be carried away by the wind. YunNan people call it " Climbing to branches flower".Silk tree has a high value in economic use. Its fiber is not crooked, can not be used for spinning slim yarn, but has a good character of flexibility and softness. So it is often used for doing some cushions and pillow cores.Its wool is light, not easy to be dampened, so its flotage is relatively strong. The experiment says that 1 kg of silk tree can float 15 kg of a human body. So we use silk tree for life buoys' stuffing. |
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| The wood of silk trees is soft, can be used in making some container boards, match sticks, wooden boats, barrels, basins, etc., it is also a good material for making papers. We imported 15 silk trees from GuangZhou city, all of them are in healthy growing luxuriantly Between February and March of this year, flaming flowers came into bloom one after another, adding more colorful scenery to our equatorial rain forest room. |
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