Prickly trees. Leaves alternate, long petioled digitately compound; leaflets 5-7, entire or serrate, lanceolate, acuminate to cuspidate, stipules deciduous. Inflorescence axillary or racemose with 2-3 bracteoles. Flowers large, pinkish or yellow. Calyx campanulate, 2-5 lobed, valvate. Petals 5, linear, oblong or spathulate, spreading or reflexed with convolute aestivation, pubescent or wooly. Staminal tube double, outer one short, 10 lobed at the apex, without anthers (staminode); inner tube long, adanate with petals at the base, 5 lobed at the apex, each lobe bearing linear extrose anthers. Carpels 3, fused, ovary ± ovate, 5 -locular with many ovules in each locule; style simple, stigma capitate, 5 lobed, pubescent. Capsule pyriform or oblong, woody, dehiscing by 5 valves. Seeds numerous, embedded within the dense wool of endocarp.

A genus with about 9 species chiefly distributed in South America; represented by the following introduced species in Pakistan.

Lower Taxon

• Chorisia insignis H.B.K.