Oops, I had identified the Indian Silk Cotton tree without looking at the attached photo. Saw the photo. It is not the Silk Cotton tree but the Milk Weed plant "Calotropis gigantea". This plant is locally known as 'Ruiee'. Its milky latex is uised to soften the skin for extracting thorns from the flesh. It is used as a herbal insecticide in rice fields. Its papery fine seed is dispersed by silky white hair which look like the flowers of the Powder puff or the Rain Tree. Kids enjoy bursting the purple to mauve flower buds.
Warm regards, Miguel On Sat Feb 18 19:07:22 PST 2006, Tine Albinus wrote: > Im contacting you with the hope, that you with your knowledge of Goa can > either help me yourself or know somebody knowledgeable about plants who can. > > There is one plant very common to Goa that Im trying to find the name of > in English and Latin. When I talk to people, they refer to it as Silk > cotton, but I havent been able to find anybody, who knows the real name. > > http://www.goanet.org/images/topics/EmailPhotos/Silk-Cotton.jpg