32 
indigenous to Asia or Africa, but as De Candolle, 1 Solms-Laubach, 
and others have clearly pointed out, this view is wholly untenable. 
There is no record of its having been known before the discovery 
of America. There is no Sanskrit name for it. The modern Indian 
names for it are derived from the American word papaya, which in 
turn is a corruption of the Carib "ababai." Nevertheless, the plant 
was introduced into the Old World at an early date, for Watt 2 records 
that seeds were taken from India to Naples in the year 1626. There 
is some difference of opinion as to the locality of its origin. Correa 
de Mello and Spruce consider the West Indies as its home, while 
De Candolle includes also the shores of the Gulf of Mexico as prob- 
ably within its native habitat. Solms-Laubach inclines strongly 
to the opinion that its home has been Mexico and Central America. 
On the whole the continental origin appears more probable. 
It is an interesting fact that the species has been found nowhere 
outside of cultivation except where it appears to be an escape. How 
it came into existence is a study quite as interesting as that relating 
to its native habitat. Solms-Laubach proposes the hypothesis 
that this plant is the product of the fusion of several wild species, 
and represents the product of the ancient culture of Mexico, although 
not necessarily the result of intentional hybridizing, but rather of 
the selection by man of natural hybrids showing valuable char- 
acters. It evidently had been in cultivation long before the dis- 
covery of America. That some of its near antecedents have been 
either monoecious or hermaphrodite appears highly probable from 
the presence of an aborted pistil in the staminate flowers of the 
male tree; from the frequent cases of development of this aborted 
organ into a functioning pistil; and from the increasing number of 
such hermaphrodite flowers under certain conditions of climate 
and treatment. This tendency shows itself chiefly in the male tree 
where all the organs are present in some form. In the female where 
the stamens have entirely disappeared there are, so far as can be 
learned, no recorded instances of such change to hermaphroditism 
taking place. 
BREEDING WITHIN THE DHECIOUS FORMS. 
Very little effort has been made to improve the papaya by sys- 
tematic breeding. There has been some selection on the part of 
growers who naturally plant the seeds from particularly pleasing 
fruits. The most of such selection has been with the dioecious 
papaya and here there is an inherent difficulty even in the way of 
the scientific breeder. Seed from a pistillate tree will necessarily 
be a cross of two individuals. The characters of the female plant 
» Origin of Cultivated Hants. London, 1884, pp. 293-295. 
2 Dictionary of the Economic Products of India. Calcutta, 1889, vol. 2, p. 159. 
