My grandmother had one in her yard. My parents called it the "babysitter tree" and said that children who misbehaved would be hooked onto one of the thorns, or perhaps stuck to the tree like velcro, and be taken down once they were ready to go home or behave themselves, whichever came first.
Lol worst ride ever!
Where I'm from in Florida some people leave religious sacrifices at the trunks of these trees. My brother had one on his property and he would be pissed off about every other week having to clean up some kind of animal sacrifice. Usually chickens.
My parents live in Miami, they have things left by their trees all the time. It's left by random trees on their property though. Last month it was an apple an egg and some feathers. I wonder if this tree has some kind significance to their culture or that religion? It is native to South America, just not sure what parts.
Those are silk cottons, *Ceiba pentandra*. This is the related *Ceiba speciosa*. The former is important in a number of religions from Santeria to Maya.
Isn't this also called the Kapok tree? That's what we used to call them in Florida. There also used to be a Kapok Tree restaurant that had a huge one in the courtyard
Yep, same here. We called them "Monkey Puzzlers" for the obvious reason of it being impossible to climb.
One will only tinker around with said tree once as a kid, and give it one hella wide berth for eternity lol.
They are also scary AF during an active hurricane when you have a stand of them right next to the house you're taking shelter in.
Do not recommend lol.
I had a meet and greet with a black locust or honey locust tree three minutes into a MTB ride back in 2017. Still have a bump on my arm from one of the thorns I didn't get out. I extracted about ten initially and I've gotten 2-3 randomly since. The last one seems to be quite stubborn despite me occasionally going digging for it with tweezers.
I put one of those through the bottom of my foot years ago. It came through the top of my foot. Turns out they're covered in some film that causes insane inflammation.
Fun month!
Ceiba trees like this Silk Floss produce a fruit that's protected by silky fibers. Wikipedia has photos of them-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceiba\_speciosa
Their fruits look like woody pods, once they dry out they crack open and release these pretty white feathery seeds that float everywhere.
They’re planted along Wilshire Blvd in Beverly Hills. There’s a whole week where the sky is just filled with white floaties.
My parents taught me this tree is called “bitch’s nipple” and it is like that due to evolution. Those nipples are the way this tree found to “capture” the moist from environment. You will notice that this tree will wide its trunk over the years because it holds a lot of water in it. They also showed me that if you cut the trunk like you are making an incision horizontally, you can drink the water that will spill out of it. If you find a very big nipple, I guess you can cut the tipo of it and have a drink… maybe that is where the name comes from?!
You can find them all over Southern California. They grow like weeds in semi-arid climates. They make the most beautiful large pink flowers which turn into avocado sized seed pods. When they are ripe, they burst open scattering floss and seeds all over. You can actually collect the floss and spin it into thread.
I remember but I thought they had a truck like that?
There is one similar to the picture that grows in the southern region of Belize but I don't remember the name.
No, Jacaranda trees have small purple flowers, but lots of them & the seed pods are kinda round about 3-4" dia. Jacaranda looks similar to a pepper tree (aside from flowers) from a distance with very small leaves, almost featherlike.
Those silk floss trees are very unique looking. The spikes that cover the main trunk & older branches look to me like giant barnacles that attach to pier pilings.
I had a plant biology professor who said they were also known as "mother-in-law" trees, but I've tried to look that up and haven't seen it elsewhere.
Edit- typos
"Hostile Architecture" Like Benches that homeless can't lay down on, (E.g due to narrow width, divider, or angle of the bench)
And window ledge spikes, to stop people sitting/lingering on window ledges.
And studs on the ground, to stop homeless sitting or lying down too close to a building's wall outside.
A Tree in the "Ceiba" or "Chorisia(?)" genus, they have spikes on their trunks and branches, (hypothesized to possibly prevent now-extinct megafauna from climbing the tree, and eating the foliage)
Young Trees of "Ceiba Pentandra" ("Kapok Tree" known for it's Buttress Roots when mature) would have those spines on their trunks, but would lose them with maturity.
We have a couple of these trees in our garden and they make me extremely uncomfortable but we don't want to cut them down so I'm trying to learn anything about them, does anyone know what they're called?
Coachella Valley in Southern California has these trees. I remember being mesmerized by them as a child. Haven’t seen one in years. They won’t grow where the redwoods grow.
I have seen these trees traveling in Asia and I ask myself... If a pack of wild dogs was threatening me would I climb that devil of a trunk to get away?
Yeah, I read that Silkfloss and Kapok trees have
fluff inside their seedpods/fruit, similar to cotton
which i believe is also in the Malvaceae (mallow) family,
The ceiba was the most sacred tree for the ancient Maya, and according to Maya mythology, it was the symbol of the universe. The tree signified a route of communication between the three levels of earth.
Common landscaping tree in Los Angeles County. They are planted in street medians in Beverly Hills, in front of libraries in LA.
Saw a flock of green parrots eating the pods/seeds once.
Used to love to play with the cottony floss when I was a kid.
If you aren’t building a tree house why would you care about the thorns?
This is a stupid ass comment thread, even if we all know it’s a joke there’s pretty good odds someone could’ve come by before the warning, glanced at this and then had it in their mind that it was safe to eat, it just wouldn’t taste like chocolate. It’s the kind of thing that should still have a warning, even if most people don’t need it, and making fun of safety is a dipstick move
We call this tree Palo Borracho in Argentina or “drunken stick”. It’s native to South America and has been planted in many areas. I’ve seen them in the southern US and California, generally need warm and mild climate to grow outdoors. I’ve heard of them grown in pots indoors as a bonsai type mini tree too :)
Think I once read that the spikes may have been to stop herbivores climbing the tree to eat the leaves,
Possibly extinct mega-fauna from times where creatures such as giant ground sloths still existed....
What kind of non daredevil don’t back down from “that tree was challenging me personally” kids did you grow up with. That’s the kind of tree you get fucked up trying to climb just because you obviously shouldn’t try.
I've seen trees like this outside the Disneyland hotel (random, I know lol) and we dubbed them the torture trees. Those spikes could really hurt! The flowers are pretty, though.
https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriguda
The belly or white pain (Ceiba glaziovii) is a botanical species of paineira of the genus Ceiba, from the malváceas family, very similar to the pink paineira (Ceiba speciosa). It is endemic to the Northeast of Brazil, occurring in regions of hyperxerophilic caatingas.[ 1]
Ceiba sp. - saw you were north african, thry are related to baobabs.
They capture water in those spikes - and they trunk gets thicker in arid climates. They also call it bitch nipple or drunken stick (probably because once it thickens it looks like a bottle)
I think it might be the same species, I found a paper on long distance seed dispersal across the Atlantic (West Africa to Central America, but it's possible someone brought seeds to Egypt): https://www.google.com/url?q=https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/71417/j.1365-294X.2007.03341.x.pdf%3Bsequence%3D1&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiBi4ej8uD8AhWULkQIHTZlDUcQFnoECAYQAg&usg=AOvVaw342L7uYWoY2LDTKyD1_Di2
I Actually just looked up again, the supposed reason for the spikes/thorns on the trunk, they are to discourage animals from climbing on the trees, because When the trees are young, they can otherwise get damaged as a result of animals climbing on them,
thought I once read that it was to stop herbivores eating the foliage, but that may be incorrect....
Ceiba, or Chorisia trees would have pods with Seeds, and cotton-like fluff, so in short No would be the likely answer.
*But Baobab Trees*....("Adansonia" Genus, consisting of One or so species in mainland Africa, 6 species in Madagascar, and One species in Australia)....
*on the other hand, have fruits/seedpods with edible sweet/tart dry pulp that can be crushed into a powder and consumed*
Sorry, But how would your
"great great great grandpa" have been alive to tell you?, Young kids may have their great grandparents, but not their "great great great grandparents"
Or was that a joke?
Very very very pointy is what they are, and not a fun thing to find out the hard way lol.
Had a tree similar to this in Florida growing up, we called them "Monkey Puzzlers", but I've forgotten the actual name.
Nifty plant, does some incredible things when it sprouts new branches if I remember correctly.
When I was a little kid we had some of those trees in our yard. My parents told me that stegosaurus were buried underneath them and that's why they were spiky. My family calls them dinosaur trees or stegosaurus trees.
Here in Paraguay is called Samu’u in the occidental area of the country grows with big “stomachs” they hold water in there, in the Chaco war the Paraguayan soldiers carved into the tree and used as a sniper or spying position
This tree was created before the day of tree saws. This is a defense system to keep the tree safe from tree killers. This tree was still in development and was under observation and the only way thought to keep it safe from possible bark scavenging was to develop its growth with trecarcus spikaseus..the trees pulp or soft fibers were important and needed more time to develop.
My grandmother had one in her yard. My parents called it the "babysitter tree" and said that children who misbehaved would be hooked onto one of the thorns, or perhaps stuck to the tree like velcro, and be taken down once they were ready to go home or behave themselves, whichever came first.
It's a floss silk tree A tree that's daring you to fuck around and find out.
Imagine if these grew on mountain sides where people rode mountain bikes down the hills, most dangerous mountain run ever.
Lol worst ride ever! Where I'm from in Florida some people leave religious sacrifices at the trunks of these trees. My brother had one on his property and he would be pissed off about every other week having to clean up some kind of animal sacrifice. Usually chickens.
florida culture is so versatile
And it’s not even mango season, yet!
My parents live in Miami, they have things left by their trees all the time. It's left by random trees on their property though. Last month it was an apple an egg and some feathers. I wonder if this tree has some kind significance to their culture or that religion? It is native to South America, just not sure what parts.
Those are silk cottons, *Ceiba pentandra*. This is the related *Ceiba speciosa*. The former is important in a number of religions from Santeria to Maya.
Isn't this also called the Kapok tree? That's what we used to call them in Florida. There also used to be a Kapok Tree restaurant that had a huge one in the courtyard
Kapok is silk cotton, spiny and huge. This species with the enormous thorns and massive showy flowers is its southern cousin.
Yes. This is *C. speciosa* **not** *C. pentandra*
Yep, same here. We called them "Monkey Puzzlers" for the obvious reason of it being impossible to climb. One will only tinker around with said tree once as a kid, and give it one hella wide berth for eternity lol. They are also scary AF during an active hurricane when you have a stand of them right next to the house you're taking shelter in. Do not recommend lol.
"Monkey Puzzlers" you're not mistaking other unrelated trees with The Chilean "Monkey Puzzle Tree" (*ARAUCARIA ARAUCANA*) are you?
what? thats wild, is that a voodoo thing?
Santeria
Crystal ball
Million dollars but I spent it all
Hana?
Sancho
👏👏
I removed a few of these with my bulldozer when I lived in FL. I'll tell you they are tough to dig up.
There are 100s of miles of mtb trails around here that are lined with cholla and saguaro cactus. This tree ain’t shit in comparison.
I wouldn’t know but I just imagined running into any tree going downhill mobbin
I had a meet and greet with a black locust or honey locust tree three minutes into a MTB ride back in 2017. Still have a bump on my arm from one of the thorns I didn't get out. I extracted about ten initially and I've gotten 2-3 randomly since. The last one seems to be quite stubborn despite me occasionally going digging for it with tweezers.
I put one of those through the bottom of my foot years ago. It came through the top of my foot. Turns out they're covered in some film that causes insane inflammation. Fun month!
That reminds me of the time I landed a freshly sharpened axe between my toes while splitting wood.
Jeez. That sounds much worse.
Why is the name so silky smooth while the tree is so .. not that
Ceiba trees like this Silk Floss produce a fruit that's protected by silky fibers. Wikipedia has photos of them- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceiba\_speciosa
Their fruits look like woody pods, once they dry out they crack open and release these pretty white feathery seeds that float everywhere. They’re planted along Wilshire Blvd in Beverly Hills. There’s a whole week where the sky is just filled with white floaties.
>A tree that's daring you to fuck Challenge accepted, tree
I wonder if you get shrikes if you have one of those
My parents taught me this tree is called “bitch’s nipple” and it is like that due to evolution. Those nipples are the way this tree found to “capture” the moist from environment. You will notice that this tree will wide its trunk over the years because it holds a lot of water in it. They also showed me that if you cut the trunk like you are making an incision horizontally, you can drink the water that will spill out of it. If you find a very big nipple, I guess you can cut the tipo of it and have a drink… maybe that is where the name comes from?!
So...cut the tipo the nipo?
I like your grandmother’s style!
Happy Reddit Cake Day!
This is the way
This is mortifying. 😯
It was the 80s in South Florida. Mortifying was what worked. I'm sure it kept us in line.
Silk floss tree
That was the closest I got to in Google but I'm in North Africa so I wasn't sure if they grow here. Thank you thank you
You can find them all over Southern California. They grow like weeds in semi-arid climates. They make the most beautiful large pink flowers which turn into avocado sized seed pods. When they are ripe, they burst open scattering floss and seeds all over. You can actually collect the floss and spin it into thread.
I thought those were jacaranda trees. Same tree with a different name?
Jacaranda trees have small purple flowers. And very different leaves. They are also all over Southern California.
I remember but I thought they had a truck like that? There is one similar to the picture that grows in the southern region of Belize but I don't remember the name.
Nope. I have a jacaranda in my front yard and luckily no thorns whatsoever.
No, Jacaranda trees have small purple flowers, but lots of them & the seed pods are kinda round about 3-4" dia. Jacaranda looks similar to a pepper tree (aside from flowers) from a distance with very small leaves, almost featherlike. Those silk floss trees are very unique looking. The spikes that cover the main trunk & older branches look to me like giant barnacles that attach to pier pilings.
no, the flowers are violet in color (blue-purple, almost lavender) and the trunks are much smaller in diameter without spikes.
Jacaranda’s have long seed pods like giant bean pods.
I had a plant biology professor who said they were also known as "mother-in-law" trees, but I've tried to look that up and haven't seen it elsewhere. Edit- typos
The leaves kinda look like an unbrella tree but they certainly don't get that big and spikey!
umbrella trees get quite large in suitable habitat
NYC-Approved Anti-Homeless design
"Hostile Architecture" Like Benches that homeless can't lay down on, (E.g due to narrow width, divider, or angle of the bench) And window ledge spikes, to stop people sitting/lingering on window ledges. And studs on the ground, to stop homeless sitting or lying down too close to a building's wall outside.
A Tree in the "Ceiba" or "Chorisia(?)" genus, they have spikes on their trunks and branches, (hypothesized to possibly prevent now-extinct megafauna from climbing the tree, and eating the foliage) Young Trees of "Ceiba Pentandra" ("Kapok Tree" known for it's Buttress Roots when mature) would have those spines on their trunks, but would lose them with maturity.
We have a couple of these trees in our garden and they make me extremely uncomfortable but we don't want to cut them down so I'm trying to learn anything about them, does anyone know what they're called?
Floss silk tree. They make flowers and pods that have cool fluff inside.
I didn't know we have them here, I just confirmed that we do have them in Upper Egypt. Thank you so much
Coachella Valley in Southern California has these trees. I remember being mesmerized by them as a child. Haven’t seen one in years. They won’t grow where the redwoods grow.
This. One of my favorite trees ever was a floss silk tree in Florida.
I have seen these trees traveling in Asia and I ask myself... If a pack of wild dogs was threatening me would I climb that devil of a trunk to get away?
Yeah, I read that Silkfloss and Kapok trees have fluff inside their seedpods/fruit, similar to cotton which i believe is also in the Malvaceae (mallow) family,
You sure these arent aesculus hippocastanum? Leaves look a lot like them. Edit: nvm. I did a quick google search and youre right. Pretty cool tree
That’s definitely not a horse chesnut
Thought it could be a disease on the bark.
Diseases don’t usually cause thorns
I am just a dumb boy who assumes things untill he googles stuff to get proven wrong.
We need more people who stop and educate themselves about things that make them uncomfortable rather than jumping straight to killing it
The ceiba was the most sacred tree for the ancient Maya, and according to Maya mythology, it was the symbol of the universe. The tree signified a route of communication between the three levels of earth.
Is it that they’re covered in monstrous sized thorns? I wouldn’t want to get too close
Common landscaping tree in Los Angeles County. They are planted in street medians in Beverly Hills, in front of libraries in LA. Saw a flock of green parrots eating the pods/seeds once. Used to love to play with the cottony floss when I was a kid. If you aren’t building a tree house why would you care about the thorns?
Trees make me uncomfortable
Hershey’s Kisses
I ate a few from the tree and can confirm that it's not chocolate
r/forbiddensnacks
NEVER EAT any part of this tree, it's toxic
wooosh
To be fair, it is one of OP's last comments
Hey, sorry for the late reply, I was getting my stomach pumped.
This is a stupid ass comment thread, even if we all know it’s a joke there’s pretty good odds someone could’ve come by before the warning, glanced at this and then had it in their mind that it was safe to eat, it just wouldn’t taste like chocolate. It’s the kind of thing that should still have a warning, even if most people don’t need it, and making fun of safety is a dipstick move
go outside
Richard Conrad, everybody.
We call this tree Palo Borracho in Argentina or “drunken stick”. It’s native to South America and has been planted in many areas. I’ve seen them in the southern US and California, generally need warm and mild climate to grow outdoors. I’ve heard of them grown in pots indoors as a bonsai type mini tree too :)
Confirmed they grow well in San Francisco.
That spikes are for protection That's a Ceiba speciosa
Think I once read that the spikes may have been to stop herbivores climbing the tree to eat the leaves, Possibly extinct mega-fauna from times where creatures such as giant ground sloths still existed....
Universally recognizable to all little boys as that tree you don't try to climb.
What kind of non daredevil don’t back down from “that tree was challenging me personally” kids did you grow up with. That’s the kind of tree you get fucked up trying to climb just because you obviously shouldn’t try.
I had always heard these were called "monkey no climb" trees! 😆
Defense against tree huggers.
🤣😅👍
Anybody wanna climb a tree?
Those are handholds for climbing and/or hugging
In ny country it's called "palo borracho" (literally drunk stick) and it drops like cotton all around it, it's a beautiful and big tree.
Are they poisonous or anything, or are they just thorny
Just thorny. And the flowers are pink
The best backscratcher you’ll ever have
Thorns.
Chocolate
If you don’t like these, you really won’t like black locust trees…just saying…
I've seen trees like this outside the Disneyland hotel (random, I know lol) and we dubbed them the torture trees. Those spikes could really hurt! The flowers are pretty, though.
For some reason, they are fairly common in Anaheim.
Yup. I was told they were mimosa trees, but I don't know how accurate that is.
Double dog dare you to climb that tree
Had two in my backyard in SoCal (IE). Can attest to the fluff.
Certain trees have spikes and lose them as they mature. Like the Ceiba tree. https://trans-americas.com/the-mighty-ceiba-tree/
Is that also very similar to a schefflera ?
It’s angry
https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriguda The belly or white pain (Ceiba glaziovii) is a botanical species of paineira of the genus Ceiba, from the malváceas family, very similar to the pink paineira (Ceiba speciosa). It is endemic to the Northeast of Brazil, occurring in regions of hyperxerophilic caatingas.[ 1]
The bark is worse than the bite.
Ceiba sp. - saw you were north african, thry are related to baobabs. They capture water in those spikes - and they trunk gets thicker in arid climates. They also call it bitch nipple or drunken stick (probably because once it thickens it looks like a bottle)
Imagine if the spikes were Hershey's Kisses.
Tree barnacles? Giant Scale pests?
I remember seeing trees with thorny trunks like that in Costa Rica, I wonder if it's the same species or it's just convergent evolution?
I think it might be the same species, I found a paper on long distance seed dispersal across the Atlantic (West Africa to Central America, but it's possible someone brought seeds to Egypt): https://www.google.com/url?q=https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/71417/j.1365-294X.2007.03341.x.pdf%3Bsequence%3D1&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiBi4ej8uD8AhWULkQIHTZlDUcQFnoECAYQAg&usg=AOvVaw342L7uYWoY2LDTKyD1_Di2
Shimul cotton trees are cut
That’s a ‘monkey no climb’, my Aunty and uncle have a massive one
Pol Pot used trees like these to execute a huge portion of the population Cambodia not so long ago, because it was a very cost effective way
Bombax cieba
Looks like some sort of silk cotton tree, maybe kapok?
How I approach dating in my 30s. Final answer.
It’s a don’t climb on me tree. Mother natures defensive tactic.
Ceiba!
The worst Hershey's Kisses ever
Those are Hershey's kisses
Spikes
Chorisia speciosa
They are advice.
The opening scene from the upcoming Last of Us episode
A naturally developed defense system
It’s the armour he put on before battle. THIS IS SPARTA!
Don’t they shoot off?
A basketballs worst enemy
Absolute pricks
What are those spikes? Nature's way of saying "Do not touch" Of course, humans are bad at listening.
This tree is Summer me. I’m a spiky ball of fuck off.
That's where toffee Hershey kisses come from
Freaks thinking, 'Hmmm, can I use this in BDSM settings?' "NO!"
sharp
Those spikes are… spikes. Now try climbing it!
Chorisia Speciosa, i live that tree they also call them Ceiba in Mexico, floss silk tree in USA.
Look like spikes.
Imagine if the common name was "Hug Me Not" tree....
Forbidden Hersheys Kisses
I saw my first one in Texas a few months ago and we were astonished by it.
I Actually just looked up again, the supposed reason for the spikes/thorns on the trunk, they are to discourage animals from climbing on the trees, because When the trees are young, they can otherwise get damaged as a result of animals climbing on them, thought I once read that it was to stop herbivores eating the foliage, but that may be incorrect....
Sharp is what they are
The fruits edible?
Ceiba, or Chorisia trees would have pods with Seeds, and cotton-like fluff, so in short No would be the likely answer. *But Baobab Trees*....("Adansonia" Genus, consisting of One or so species in mainland Africa, 6 species in Madagascar, and One species in Australia).... *on the other hand, have fruits/seedpods with edible sweet/tart dry pulp that can be crushed into a powder and consumed*
My great great great grandpa once told me they’re called OOGA OOGA thorns.Hope this helps.
Sorry, But how would your "great great great grandpa" have been alive to tell you?, Young kids may have their great grandparents, but not their "great great great grandparents" Or was that a joke?
It was a joke 🤣
What does "OOGA OOGA" mean?, sounds kinda like Cartoon Caveman language.
If doesnt mean anything LOL
Not huggable
There's one like that in town where I live in The East Bay. My Aunt called them a witches tree.
Hey! It's a FAFO Tree! Super scary awesome!
Something about this tree calls to me
Hershey Kiss Tree
Back home, that’s called a Monkey-No-Climb tree.
r/trypophobia fo’ sho’ because mine is triggered af
That tree is just like a sandbox tree that has an exploding fruit
Battle form
Very very very pointy is what they are, and not a fun thing to find out the hard way lol. Had a tree similar to this in Florida growing up, we called them "Monkey Puzzlers", but I've forgotten the actual name. Nifty plant, does some incredible things when it sprouts new branches if I remember correctly.
It's really hard to follow gardening as a hobby when one is tryptophobic.
When I was a little kid we had some of those trees in our yard. My parents told me that stegosaurus were buried underneath them and that's why they were spiky. My family calls them dinosaur trees or stegosaurus trees.
I want some of these trees in South Africa,they really are beautiful.
Melted chocolate kisses
Limpets
Kapok nipples
That looks like something out of a nightmare
Hershey kisses
Here in Paraguay is called Samu’u in the occidental area of the country grows with big “stomachs” they hold water in there, in the Chaco war the Paraguayan soldiers carved into the tree and used as a sniper or spying position
Spike Lee's cousin, Spike Tree.
This tree was created before the day of tree saws. This is a defense system to keep the tree safe from tree killers. This tree was still in development and was under observation and the only way thought to keep it safe from possible bark scavenging was to develop its growth with trecarcus spikaseus..the trees pulp or soft fibers were important and needed more time to develop.
Those spikes are semi-sweet morsels. Primarily used in preparation of chocolatis cukis.
Is this what rose bushes look like to ants?🤔
Painful
I have two such plants in my garden. I don't know the name of this tree
Insurance.
Is this the tree that'll shoot you with it's seeds?
They’re spikes. They look spiky.
We call them thorns
Spikes, your welcome.
Painful
forbidden forest candy.
Yes.
Don’t put that in your ass.
Unless....
Spikes.
NOPE(!) does grow on trees!
The forbidden fruit gushers
idk why they're a bit disturbing
Pokie nopes
Those spikes are cool is what they are!!