bottle tree

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of certain Australian trees of the genus Brachychiton, having a swollen, sometimes bottle-shaped trunk and cultivated in warm regions as an ornamental.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An Australian tree, Sterculia rupestris, so called from the shape of its trunk, which resembles a soda - water bottle. The natives make nets of its fibers and quench their thirst from reservoirs of sap which are formed in the stem.
2. n. Any tree with a swollen trunk. In examples of the dry, thorny bush of central Brazil (Cavanillesia arborea and other Bombacaceæ) the trunks are expanded like a cask up to a thickness of five meters. These trunks serve as water-reservoirs to carry the tree through the dry season.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) an Australian tree (Sterculia rupestris), with a bottle-shaped, or greatly swollen, trunk.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an Australian tree of the genus Brachychiton
2. n. an Australian tree of the genus Brachychiton