Native to South America. It is found in lowland semi-deciduous rainforest. Highly-fragrant, primarily pollinated by carpenter bees (Xylocopa spp.) and bats (which consume the anthers and stamens, besides the sterile pollen). Flowers last only 1 day, but several are produced at any one time throughout the year. In Kampala, this tree can be found along Jinja road. 

Cannonball tree is a deciduous tree with a dense, oblong crown; it can grow from 8 - 30 metres tall. The cylindrical bole is 30 - 50cm in diameter.

BARK: greyish-brown, fissured.

LEAVES: smooth to slightly velvety with serrate and somewhat margins, simple, arranged spirally at ends of branches.

FLOWERS: produced in racemes along woody extrusions emerging directly from trunk or large branches further up the tree, complex nectar-less structures, each consisting of 6 large and fleshy-waxy petals that are red to orange on the inside and yellow on the outside, a disk of numerous short and yellow ring-stamens (which produce fertile pollen) arranged around reduced styles and stamens, and a pink-white anemone-like structure of hood-stamens (which produce sterile pollen).

FRUIT: nuts large (20-24 cm across), globose, with hard woody exocarp (shell), produced in clusters, taking some 18 months to attain maturity, and resembling rusty-brown cannonballs when ripe. 

An ornamental tree.

Edible: fruit.

Medicine: pulp of the wood, fruit pulp and the seeds. http://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php id=Couroupita+guianensis

The flowers have a wonderful smell and can be used to scent perfumes and cosmetics.

The hard shells of the fruit are sometimes used as containers.

The wood is used for making toys, boxes and crates, matches, interior joinery and panelling, furniture components, wood-ware, floats, blockboard and fibre boards.