2 BULLETIN 61, HAWAII EXPERIMENT STATION 
HISTORY AND DISTRIBUTION 
The papaya is a native of tropical America. The exact place of 
its origin has not been determined. Popenoe (16, p. 228) calls at- 
tention to considerable evidence indicating that the species originally 
came from Mexico. Solms-Laubach (18), who devoted much time 
to a study of the species and monographed the order Caricaceae, 
believed that the cultivated papaya originated as a cross between two 
species of the genus Carica native to Mexico. Probably the earliest 
published mention of the papaya was made by the Dutch traveler, 
Linschoten (16, p. 225), in 1598. He states that the plant was 
taken from the Spanish Indies (West Indies) to Malacca and trans- 
ported thence to India. According to him the papaya was desig- 
nated as " papaios," and his description leaves no doubt as to its 
identity. From either the Philippines or Malacca the papaya is 
believed to have spread rapidly by means of the seeds to many 
islands of the tropical Pacific. Sturtevant (19, p. 142) indicates 
that the papaya had been widely spread in the Pacific islands by 
1800. Ellis (5, v. 1, p. 66) mentioned the papaw apple (Carica 
papaya) as growing abundantly in Tahiti. During a trip around 
the island of Hawaii in July and August, 1823, he (5, v. If, p. 25) 
also observed that the papaw apple was grown among other fruits 
and vegetables by the Hawaiians. Several old-timers in Hawaii, 
including Thomas G. Thrum, of Honolulu, who came to the island 
from Tahiti in 1853, state that the papaya was commonly grown 
in these islands in the early fifties. Mr. Thrum says that the papaya, 
which he had also seen growing in Tahiti, was in common cultiva- 
tion in Honolulu, and calls attention to the Hawaiian name of 
the papaya, he-i, 2 which from its nature indicates that the fruit was 
in use before the discovery of Hawaii by Englishmen in 1778. The 
papaya was also known as milikane, another Hawaiian name. The 
papaya evidently was introduced into Hawaii at an early date, for 
the original inhabitants did not ordinarily give Hawaiian names 
to newly introduced fruits but adopted the English name, sometimes 
with some modification as to sound. 
NOMENCLATURE AND BOTANICAL RELATIONSHIPS 
In Hawaii and other parts of the United States, the name papaya 
is now generally applied to Carica papaya. Many other English- 
speaking countries use the term papaw, which in North America 
has long been applied to Asimina triloba, a wholly unrelated species. 
DeCandolle (2, p. 293) concluded that the common name papaya is 
a corruption of the Carib word ababai of the original American 
Indians. Popenoe (16, p. 228) says that papaia, papeya, and papia 
are some of the corruptions in use. The papaya also has many other 
different common names in the various countries in which it has been 
introduced. It also has several different botanical names, but C. 
papaya Linn, is now generally accepted. In botanical classification 
the genus Carica belongs to the small family Caricaceae. The ge- 
neric characters are such that botanists have at different times classi- 
- The papaya has very similar names in other Polynesian dialects. In Samoan it is 
known us efl ; in Tahitian, as iita ; in Fijian, as esi ; and in Marquesasan, as vi. 
