Every October this tree turns a small garden pink.
Silk Floss Tree
In Spanish it is the palo borracho, the drunken stick, and the trunk is the reason: green, swollen through the middle, tapering at both ends and studded with fat conical thorns. This page maps every silk floss tree on the site, 5 so far across 5 cities.
Ceiba speciosa comes from Argentina and Brazil, stores water in that belly and flowers pink in October, when the branches are half bare and the flowers are all there is to see. The one in the small Jardim Alfredo Keil turns a whole Lisbon garden pink for a few weeks. Naples' has the widest trunk of the 53 entries the national monumental register holds for that city. Malaga's survived the remodelling of the streets around the cathedral by being built into the result. The fourth stands in the Parque Genoves in Cadiz, undated, which is normal for a tree that puts on girth this quickly.
Lisbon
Palermo
Palermo calls this one the drunken tree, and the trunk explains it.
Naples
Photo: Mary Lata (CC BY 4.0)
Naples has 53 entries on Italy's national monumental register and this one has the widest trunk of the lot.
Malaga
This tree survived a construction project by becoming part of the construction.
Cadiz
Photo: Bruno Peixoto (brunopy) (CC BY 4.0)
Its name translates as the drunken stick, and one look at the trunk explains why.
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