a6 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. CARICACEA, 
spreading or subreflexed ; stamens ten, in two ranks, or five ; ovary obovoid-oblong, longer than the tube 
of the corolla, more or less spuriously five-celled below. Fruit baccate, yellow, orange-colored, purple, 
or crimson, slightly five-lobed, one-celled or more or less completely five-celled, filled with soft pulp or 
containing a large central cavity, many-seeded, that produced from hermaphrodite flowers long-stalked, 
pendulous, usually unsymmetrical, or gibbous by the abortion of one of the placentas, and smaller than 
that from the pistillate flowers. 
sac-like arils, occasionally germinating within the fruit;* testa crustaceous, closely investing the mem- 
Seeds drupaceous, ovoid, inclosed in membranaceous silvery white 
branaceous inner coat, the outer portion becoming thick, rugose, succulent, and ultimately dry and 
leathery. Embryo in the axis of fleshy albumen ; cotyledons ovate, foliaceous, compressed, longer than 
the terete radicle turned toward the minute pale subbasilar hilum.’ 
Carica inhabits southern Florida and the West Indies, the slopes of the coast mountains which 
border the southern shores of the Caribbean Sea, the Andes from Mexico to Chili, the valleys of the 
Pacific coast of tropical South America, southern Brazil, and Argentina.’ Twenty species have been 
described, but it is probable that the forests which clothe the Cordilleras of South America, where this 
genus is represented by the largest number of species, hide others still unknown to science.‘ 
The milky juice of Carica, which is most abundant in the unripe fruit, contains an enzyme, papain, 
which, like pepsin, has the power of digesting albuminous substances, and Carica leaves are commonly 
used in tropical countries to make tough meat more tender.’ The fruit of Carica Papaya, the pawpaw, 
1 Masters, Gard. Chron. ser. 3, ii. 716, f. 138, 139 ; xii. 618, £. 92, 
93. — Fritz Miiller, Flora, 1890, 332, £. 
2 The species of Carica have been grouped by Solms-Laubach 
(Martius Fl. Brasil. xiii. pt. iii. 177; Engler § Prantl Pflanzenfam. 
iii. pt. vi. a, 98) in three sections. 
C1.) VasconcettEa. Divisions of the corolla contorted or valvate 
in estivation ; stigma linear, undivided ; ovary and fruits spuriously 
five-celled. 
(2.) Hemrpapaya (A. de Candolle, Prodr. xv. pt. i. 415 [sect. 
Vasconcellea]). Divisions of the corolla contorted in estivation ; 
stigma dilated and divided at the apex ; ovary and fruits spuriously 
five-celled. 
(3.) Eupapaya. Divisions of the corolla contorted in estivation; 
stigmas irregularly divided to the base; ovary and fruits one-celled. 
8 See Hieronymus, Pl. Diaphor. Argent. 121.— Solms-Laubach, 
Martius Fl. Brasil. 1. c. 178.— Donnell Smith, Bot. Gazette, xxiii. 
247. 
4 Spruce (Jour. Linn. Soc. x. 7) in an account of the distribution 
of the Papayaceee, in addition to the twenty-five species described in 
1869, alludes to eleven others which had been seen by him in the 
forests of the Andes and on the Pacific coast of South America. 
What proportion of these belong to the genus Carica does not 
appear. In the Flora Brasiliensis Solms-Laubach describes twenty- 
two species in this family, eighteen of these belonging to Carica. 
In addition to the species, there is a hybrid Carica described 
by Van Volxem and obtained by him in 1876 by impregnating 
the flowers of Carica erythrocarpa (André, Ill. Hort. xviii. 33, t. 51 
[1871]), a small scarlet-fruited species of the warmer parts of Co- 
lombia and Peru, with the pollen of Carica Candamarcensis. From 
this cross a number of plants were raised which displayed their 
hybrid origin in the character of the leaves, intermediate in form 
and texture between those of the two parents. In the summer of 
1879 two of these hybrid plants flowered; one produced one female 
and a number of male flowers, and the other only two female flow- 
ers. The female flower of the first plant was impregnated with the 
pollen of Carica Candamarcensis, and those of the other with pollen 
taken from its own male flowers. All three grew into red fruits 
and produced seeds from which many seedlings were raised. These 
seedling plants produced male and female flowers almost exclusively 
on different individuals, although in the case of both their parents 
The fruit of 
this second cross was bright red, fragrant, oblong-obovate, slightly 
the same plant produces male and female flowers. 
ribbed, five-sided, four inches long, and two and a half inches in 
diameter. It remained on the plants for more than a year, and is 
described as very tal. (See Van Volxem, Gard. Chron. n. 
ser. xiv. 729 ; xix. 445, f. 68. — Masters, l. c. ii. £. 189.) 
5 See Holder, Mem. Wern. Nat. Hist. Soc. iii. 245 (Account of 
the Effects of the Juice of the Papaw Tree [Carica Papaya] in Inten- 
erating Butcher's Meat).— Endlicher, Enchirid. Bot. 487; Med. Pf. 
457.— Martin, Brit. Med. Jour. 1885, ii. 150; Pharm. Jour. and 
Trans. ser. 3, xvi. 129; Am. Jour. Pharm. lvii. 569; lviii. 489. — 
Rusby, Druggist’s Bull. iii. 220, £.— U. S. Dispens. ed. 16, 1883. 
Experiments made by Morong (Bull. Pharm. v. 166) to determine 
the digestive potency of the leaves of Carica Papaya and of Carica 
quercifolia showed. the following results : — 
Small cubes of cooked fresh lean beef were inclosed in several 
folds of the leaves of Carica Papaya, numerous incisions being made 
with a razor across the epidermis of some of the leaves in order 
to secure an outlet for the milky secretions, while others were left 
At the end of two days it was found that the 
largest cubes inclosed in the uncut leaves were considerably cor- 
in a natural state. 
roded and their edges rounded, while the minute pieces of meat had 
been reduced to a pulpy mass and, in some instances, dissolved into 
a greasy slime which had become widely spread over the surface of 
the leaves. At the end of five days the digestive process had re- 
duced the largest pieces of meat to pulp, and at the end of a week 
all that could be seen of the meat was a thin greasy liquid covering 
the portions of the leaf in contact with it. The cut leaves soon lost 
their potency and made but little impression on the meat, probably, 
as Dr. Morong suggests, because owing to the admission of air the 
leaves soon became dry and lost their power of inteneration. Pieces 
of meat placed within the folds of the split petioles, from which 
milky juice exuded freely, were not influenced by it at all, the meat 
simply drying up. It is probably essential, therefore, for diges- 
tive action that the meat should be closely wrapped in the leaves to 
exclude the air from it, and so insure perfect contact with their 
