Cuban Bombacopsis

Family Bombacaceae. A small deciduous tree with a tapering trunk, palmately compound leaves and thin, smooth, greenish-gray bark.

Areas of these peculiar dry forests develop on the steep slopes of the most fantastical limestone outcrops - mogotes. The tree's roots penetrate cracks in the rock and seem to flow over rock ledges, holding the thick trunks on very steep slopes. Cuban Bombacopsis sheds its leaves in the dry season (winter) and usually soon after this its trunk and branches become bright green and assume the function of photosynthesis. Large flowers with five narrow petals and a short calyx appear on the leafless branches. Their elegance is given by numerous stamens with long whitish-pink filaments, united into a tube only at the lower part.