Sunday Stamps 027: Cotton tree flower

Having issued the first set of definitive stamps on flowers on March 12, 2009, Chunghwa Post (Taiwan's Postal Service) immediately followed up with a second set featuring four flowers, including the one below:

Bombax ceiba (NT$2.50): Bombax ceiba, commonly known as cotton tree, is a deciduous tree of the Bombacaceae family. Leaves are palmately compound. Flowers are orange or red, with five petals. The calyx is cup-shaped. It produces a capsule which, when ripe, will burst open and disperse seeds that are covered thickly with cotton-like fibers. The tree has a masculine shape and looks different in all four seasons. One of its salient features is that it blooms before it leafs out.- Source

Bombax ceiba is also known as kapok tree which is natively found in southern and eastern Asia and northern Australia. It's flowers have  were said to be commonly used as herbal tea in China and that the cotton-like fibres were also used in the past as cotton substitute.

Researchers have recently found out that some active constituents and phytochemicals in this plant have known to exert many beneficial effects, particularly apigenin, a well-known anti-cancer agent, and, luteol, that has an anti-inflammatory and anti-arthritic agents. - Source