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Genus ASIMINA, Adans. — Part 2

Papaw (Asimina triloba, Dunal.)--Slender, spreading trees or shrubs, 20 to 30 feet high. Bark thin, fibrous, dark brown, blotched with pale grey, beset with warts and a network of shallow grooves. Branches grooved, reddish brown. Wood light, coarse grained, weak, soft. Winter buds small, flat, pointed, densely hairy, red. Leaves alternate, simple, clustering near ends of branches, obovate, tapering slenderly to base; 8 to 12 inches long, 4 to 5 inches broad, thin bright green above, paler beneath, on short petiole. Flowers in April, solitary in axils of last year's leaves; stamens in globular mass; pistils, many, on disk; sepals 3, green, downy; petals, 6, veiny, purplish red, ill-smelling. Fruit, 3 to 5 inches long, like a thick, shapeless banana, skin wrinkled and brown; flesh yellow, sweet, insipid. Ripe in September and October. Seeds, large, hard. Preferred habitat, rich bottom lands. Distribution, Southern States and north into Kansas, Michigan, western New York and New Jersey. Uses: Planted for ornament and for a curiosity. Fruit, in-different. Wood, inferior. Bark, used for fish nets.

This dainty little "wild banana tree" of the North is more interesting than it is useful, I am bound to confess. Its great leaves spread in umbrella whorls like certain magnolias, covering the upturned branches with a dense thatch of green. These leaves give the tree a tropical look, hinting at the fact that this is a fugitive member of a large family that belongs in the regions of no winter.

The papaw is not devoid of beauty in its blossoming time, though the flower resembles, and is not more conspicuous than that of the wild ginger that cowers in the woods. In April, the opening leaf buds have scarcely cast their scales when the wine-coloured flowers appear, set at intervals upon the twigs. Then the leaves come out lined with a red fuzz, which intensifies the rich colour of the whole tree. The bees find the flowers worth visiting, but their odour is unpleasant to most people. Twigs and leaves share this disagreeable characteristic, and the fruits repeat it in autumn.

The papaw's soft pulp, in its green banana-like envelope, is delighted in by the Negro of the South. It is sold in the markets, but is too sweet and soft to be really enjoyed by more fastidious people. One must get used to the pungent papaw taste, and then only the yellow-fleshed fruits are fit to eat. These are improved by hanging on the tree until they get a sharp bite of frost. The name, Asimina, means "sleeve-shaped fruit," and triloba refers to the three-parted flower.

The Melon Papaw (Carica Papaya, L.), which has had its name borrowed by the species just described, is a tropical tree that grows wild in southern Florida, and is often seen in greenhouses farther north. It grows like a palm, with tall stem and leaves rosetted at the top. The bark is silvery white, the leaves lustrous, long stalked, deeply cleft, and often a foot across. The flowers are waxen and yellow, and on the pistillate trees are succeeded by melon-like fruits, sometimes as large as a man's head, clustered at the base of the leaf rosette. This is the papaw exploited in certain patent medicines. It belongs to the passion-flower family.

The botanical explorer, William Bartram, wrote in 1790: "This admirable tree is certainly the most beautiful of any vegetable production I know of." The fruits are eaten raw, or made into conserves. The leaves are used by the Negroes as a substitute for soap in washing clothes. But they are especially valued as a means of making tough meat tender. The fleshy leaves are bruised, then wrapped up with the meat and laid aside. A solvent called papain, which the leaves contain, soon breaks down the tough connective tissues.