Cannonball tree with fruit and flower

Alien Tree, originally uploaded by 5cheherazad3.

The Cannonball tree (Couroupita guianensis) is a very strange looking tree. Its trunk is covered with vine looking branches that wrap around the tree in a tangled web. Beautiful and exotic looking flowers grow on these branches. The fruit when it devolops have the shape of large balls the size of cannonball and thus the name.

Buttress roots of a Big tree

Big tree 3, originally uploaded by allspice1.

This is an example of some very large buttress roots. I can't tell from the picture what kind of tree this is but there are a number of tropical tree species that have buttress roots like these.

Loaded Cannon Ball Tree

Kaman Gola, originally uploaded by dinesh_valke.

This is definitely a very strange tree! I don´t think I would want to we walking under it when one of those "Cannon Balls" decided to let go. On the other hand it would be a rather interesting tree to climb, provided of course that it was not inhabited by biting insects (which most tropical trees usually are!)