Floss silk tree

The pot-bellied toborochi is the legendary tree of Santa Cruz – according to folklore, Princess Araverá hid inside its trunk.

The floss silk tree is a tree of the mallow family growing to 15–25 m, with a bottle-shaped, swollen trunk that stores water and greenish bark studded with thick, conical prickles. Its palmate leaves drop in the dry season, and from the end of the rainy season the tree covers itself in large pink flowers with cream centres. The fruits are woody capsules containing seeds wrapped in white, silky floss, once used to stuff pillows. The species is superbly adapted to the drought of the dry Chaco forests.

Significance in the country

According to a legend from Santa Cruz, the beautiful Araverá took refuge from evil spirits inside a toborochi, and every year she still peeps out of it in the form of pink flowers. The tree adorns the squares and avenues of Santa Cruz de la Sierra and is one of the best-loved symbols of the Bolivian Oriente.

Where it grows

In the dry forests of the Chaco and the sub-Andean valleys – in the departments of Santa Cruz, Tarija and Chuquisaca, in the lower valleys of Cochabamba and in southern Beni; planted in towns.

More: Wikipedia (en) Wikipedia (pl)