Kapok

Look up kapok in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Kapok fibre is a cotton-like plant fibre obtained from the seed pods of a number of trees in the Malvaceae family, which is used for stuffing mattresses and pillows, for padding and cushioning, and as

Kapok may also refer to:

Plants

Kapok trees

  • Trees from which kapok fibre is commonly obtained:
    • Bombax genus, trees and shrubs native to western Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and the subtropical regions of East Asia and northern Australia
      • Bombax ceiba, a red-flowering tree, native to parts of tropical Asia, northern Australia, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands; previously also known as Bombax malabaricum, the 'Malabar kapok'
    • Ceiba pentandra, a native tree of the tropical Americas and West Africa with white flowers, cultivated particularly in south-east Asia for its seed fibre

Other kapok plants

  • Calotropis procera, a shrub with white and purple flowers, known in some areas as the 'kapok plant'; native to Asia and North Africa, an invasive weed in other places
  • Cochlospermum fraseri, a yellow-flowering tree known as the 'cotton tree' or 'kapok bush', native to northwestern Australia
  • Cochlospermum gillivraei, a yellow-flowering tree, native to northern Australia, with the common name 'kapok'
  • Cochlospermum gregorii, a tree of the Bixaceae family, named for the explorer Augustus Charles Gregory and native to the Northern Territory and northern Queensland, Australia; it has the common name, 'native kapok'

Other uses

  • Kampong Kapok, a Bruneian village
  • Kapok Computer, former subsidiary of the laptop manufacturer Clevo

See also

Topics referred to by the same term
Disambiguation icon
This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Kapok.
If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.