THE PAPAW. 



VHAT tree is this? asked one of the most 

 noted of American horticulturists, when 

 on a visit to the Rural Grounds the other 

 day. It was the papaw, Asimina triloba^ 

 which is not hardy at the home of our visitor. Though 

 a native in the woods of Bergen county, N. J., it is 

 unknown as a fruit to the people of the neighborhood . 



The specimen whose portrait we give was transplanted 

 about ten years 

 ago, from the 

 border of a low, 

 swampy field. It 

 is now about ten 

 feet high, and 

 well clothed with 

 i t s distinctive, 

 somewhat tropi- 

 ca 1 looking 

 foliage. This 

 tree began t o 

 fruit three 

 years ago. This 

 year it is bear- 

 ing abundantly, 

 sometimes sing- 

 ly, again in pairs, 

 triplets, quadru- 

 plets, while we 

 find as many as 

 eight and ten in 

 a cluster. The 

 specimen shown 

 on page 534 was 

 taken from the 

 tree July 6. It 

 ripens easily be- 

 fore frost, and 

 the banana -like 

 flesh is relished 

 by some, though 

 deemed insipid 

 by others. I t 

 grows from 3 to 

 4 inchesin length 

 by an inch in di- 

 ameter, being of 



a long cyndrical shape, rounded at either end, the skin 

 very smooth and of a greenish-yellow color when ripe. 

 The tree blooms early, before the leaves appear. The 

 three calyx petals are green, and within are two whorls 

 of wavy, dull purple petals, three in each whorl. In a 

 ball as large as a pea are the stamens, surmounting 

 which is the pistil. The flowers are about an inch in 



The Pawp.\w Tree [Ashniua triloba). 



diameter, with the general form of a little cup. The 

 leaves push just as the tree is in fullest bloom. 



Most of the flowers are below the terminal shoots, so 

 that when the large, obovate leaves are developed, the 

 fruit underneath, which is of the color of the leaves, is 

 rarely seen and easily overlooked, even though one is 

 searching for it. The following account of the tree is 

 from Wm. Falconer, in Rural New-Yoikt;y : 



" The papaw is a small tree indigenous to the Middle 



and Southern 

 States, from 

 western New 

 York to southern 

 Michigan and 

 southward to 

 middle Florida 

 and eastern Tex- 

 as, but rare near 

 the Atlantic 

 coast. It attains 

 its greatest de- 

 velopment in the 

 Mississippi Val- 

 ley, and especi- 

 a 1 1 y along the 

 tributaries of the 

 ower Ohio river. 

 Although it i s 

 hardy around 

 New York, it is 

 only precarious- 

 hardy north 

 of here. The 

 papaw belongs to 

 the custard ap- 

 le family of 

 lants, and is the 

 only tree of the 

 genus belonging 

 '% to this country ; 

 two or three 

 other species, 

 ow shrubs, oc- 

 I ur in the South- 

 ern States, but 

 are not hardy in 

 the north. Al- 

 though named papaw tree, it is not the papaw of com- 

 merce, which IS Carica papaya, a soft-wooded fast grow- 

 ing plant of tropical America, now cultivated consider- 

 ably in southern Florida. The name papaw has been 

 given to Asiitiiiia triloba from a fancied resemblance of 

 its fruit to that of the carica. 



" As a garden plant, however, the papaw is well worth 



I 



