It has a bottle-shaped swollen trunk in which water is stored for the dry season and is known locally as palo borracho.

It grows to about 12 metres (39 ft) tall, has a number of thick branches at the top of the swollen trunk and has a rounded crown.

They are up to 15 centimetres (5.9 in) long with yellow-green calyces and funnel-shaped corollas with five fleshy, hairy petals joined at the base.

When ripe it splits open to reveal black seeds surrounded by a mass of white fibres resembling cotton.

[2] Ceiba chodatii is native to the forests of Bolivia, the Chaco region of Paraguay and the Piedmont Mountains of western Argentina where it is found in seasonally dry woodlands.