February 28, 2009

Spent the day in Miami with my friends from Germany. We've been to Bayside Marketplace, driving around the city, and I dropped them off the Hotel close to the Airport for they would leave the next morning back to Germany. The hotel supposed to be only "one mile North of the Airport", but driving distance was way more than one mile. We almost lost, made a wrong turns, missed the right street.....(that's why I hate to drive in Miami!!) then we just passed by this gorgeous tree, I have to make a U-turn and took some shots.

Red Silk Cotton Tree, Kapok tree. The flower is like a fist size and very tall tree. Flowers before the leaves, and produce cotton-like seeds afterwards. The real Kapok trees, which have white or pale pink flowers, have good quality kapoks, which is used to fill pillows and mattresses, but this Red Silk Cotton Tree's seeds are inferior quality......Actually, I saw this flower before, and i saw the cotton-seeds before, but now, for the first time, it clicked that they are the same tree.