Vieques maps one tree so far, the great ceiba at the heart of Parque La Ceiba on the island's north side. Accounts give it 300 to 400 years, without a dating. Hurricanes Irma and Maria stripped it in 2017 and it flowered again by 2019. The park is run by the community and open to visitors, a few minutes' drive west of Isabel Segunda.
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Kapok (Ceiba pentandra) · Mosquito
In 2017 two hurricanes, Irma and then Maria, crossed Vieques within two weeks and left this ceiba stripped bare, its big branches broken. By March 2019 it was in flower again, news that NPR carried across the United States.
The tree is the reason for the park around it. The land was part of the US Navy's holdings on Vieques until the Navy left in 2004. Residents started clearing it themselves, and in 2012 the municipality declared it a nature reserve, now run by a community organisation. In 2024 Climate Tracker Caribbean counted it the third most visited place on the island, with thousands of visitors a year, and reported that a Senate bill to protect it further had been pocket-vetoed by the governor.
How old the ceiba is, nobody has measured. The University of Virginia's project page says about 350 years, a local site says a little over three centuries, and other accounts reach 400. Ceibas grow fast, so read those numbers as respect rather than dating. What you meet is a great kapok at the centre of a park that exists because people on the island decided it should. If you know its girth or have a photograph of it, tell us.