Barrigon / Bottle Tree

A tree with a swollen bottle-shaped trunk that stores water like a vegetable camel. During the dry season, when everything is brown, the barrigón bursts into white flowers like tropical snowflakes.

Pseudobombax septenatum, the barrigón or bottle tree, is a deciduous tree in the Malvaceae family, related to the ceiba. Its most notable feature is its green, smooth, swollen trunk that stores water to survive the long dry season. During the dry months (December-March), it loses its leaves and blooms with large white flowers of silky petals and pink stamens covering the bare branches. Flowers open at dusk and are pollinated by bats. It is common in the dry forests of the Panamanian Pacific, especially in the Azuero region, where it is a landscape icon.

Habitat

Dry forests and savannas of the Pacific slope, especially in Azuero and Panama