THE PAPAW THICKET. 291 



in numbers on the ground beneath the trees in the 

 fall of the year. 



Papaws have a taste something like that of a 

 banana, or like a musk-melon, egg-plant, pumpkin, and 

 squash combined, and yet with a distinct, musty, tangy 

 flavor all their own. They are very fragrant, and a 

 dish full of them will scent a whole house with a rich 

 odor, as from an old wine cellar, like a bunch of 

 arbutus in spring. The big, soft, mottled fellows are 

 the best, and are really delicious. Indeed, I know of 

 a distinguished journalist who is reported to have said 

 that the banana simply is not to be compared in the 

 same breath with the papaw. 



Our papaw of the States, however, must not be 

 confounded with the real custard apple of tropical 

 America and the West Indies. The custard apple fam- 

 ily botanically resembles the magnolia family, and all 

 are tropical except the one genus of our common 

 papaw. Of it, the leaves especially are much like 

 those of a magnolia, though thinner. A papaw-tree, 

 also, both in its leaves and in its slate-colored bark, 

 frequently resembles at a distance a young hickory or 

 sassafras sapling. The leaves are downy when young, 

 but a smooth and shiny green when mature. Some of 

 the papaw leaves are a foot or more in length, and are 

 especially beautiful in their autumn yellow; fluttering 

 in the breeze like streaming pennants, or slowly sway- 

 ing like waving gonfalons, or mayhap, as in emula- 

 tion of the banderoles of a lance, drooping in full 

 showy color from the twigs, like the feathers that hang 

 from the lock of an Indian. The leaves, consequently, 

 frequently overlap irregularly, one falling upon an- 



