240 MANUAL OF TROPICAL AND SUBTROPICAL FRUITS 



types, one with small nearly spherical fruits not over 6 inches 

 in diameter, and a very superior type called mamao da India 

 which produces fruits 18 inches long, cylindrical in form, and 

 .of excellent flavor. The hermaphrodite seedlings produce 

 some of the sweetest fruits, and they usually have thick flesh. 

 Some papayas are very sweet, while others are insipid. The 

 production of seedling races which will produce fruits of good 

 quality and breed fairly true is much to be desired. 



THE MOUNTAIN PAPAYA 

 (Caricacandamarcensis, Hook, f.) 



Since it comes from elevations of 8000 or 9000 feet in the 

 mountains of Colombia and Ecuador, this species is more frost- 

 resistant than its near relative the papaya, and in this charac- 

 teristic lies its greatest interest. It has been suggested that 

 hybridization of the two species might result in a plant which 

 would be sufficiently hardy for regions like southern California 

 and the shores of the Mediterranean, and yet would produce 

 fruit nearly as good as that of the papaya. Such a hybrid 

 has not yet been produced. 



The mountain papaya resembles its more tropical relative 

 in habit and general appearance, but it is smaller in all its 

 parts; it grows only 8 or 10 feet high, its leaves are smaller 

 (and deeply lobed), and its fruits are only 3 or 4 inches in length. 

 H. F. Macmillan says: "The tree has been introduced at 

 Hakgala Gardens, Ceylon, in 1880, and is now commonly grown 

 in hill gardens for the sake of its fruit, being often found in 

 a semi-naturalized state about up-country bungalows." A. 

 Robertson-Proschowsky of Nice, France, writes, in the Petite 

 Revue Agricole et Horticole : " It is a handsome plant, grow- 

 ing a few meters high, and often without branches, though the 

 latter are developed when the top is killed by frost. For 

 several years I have grown this species and I find it to pro- 



