Please read our full edible/medicinal use disclaimer at the end of this article and seek medical advice from a qualified professional before using a new plant in your diet. NOTE: The following information has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The skin is usually thin and smooth and easily bruised, while the flesh varies from white to yellow-orange (it should be noted, though, that white-fleshed varieties tend to be bitter and inedible). Wild pawpaws average about 3.6 inches in length by 1.4 inches in width, while selected cultivars can get to be up to six inches by 3 inches. While the pawpaws that I tried were of a particular wild variety, fruits are usually oblong and sometimes banana-shaped. A pawpaw flowerĪ single flower can produce a cluster of several fruits. Some growers will even lay decomposing animal carcasses beneath pawpaws in order to attract more carrion flies! Interplanting with other smelly carrion flowers (such as the native Wild Ginger, Asarum canadense) is also a wise strategy. In order to increase rates of pollination, you can hand pollinate by using a small paintbrush to take pollen from the flowers on one tree and apply it to the flowers of another tree. As such, flowers have a faint but unpleasant smell. Interestingly, pawpaws are not pollinated by bees, but rather by flies and beetles. Flower buds form only on one-year-old wood, and each flower has six petals (three inner and three outer) that start out green, turn brown, and then finally transition to a dark red. They begin bloom in mid-April, and many are just emerging right now. Their flowers are a sight to behold, unlike any other flowers on POP’s orchard trees, and seemingly less delicate. As a result of their long, gracefully drooping leaves, Martin Crawford describes the pawpaw as having a “sleepy” look. These trees usually grow to be between 10 and 26 feet in height, though some have been known to reach up to 40 feet. They grow in most of the eastern United States, as well as in southeastern Canada. Pawpaws were first documented in the 1541 report of the Spanish de Soto expedition who encountered Native Americans who were cultivating pawpaws east of the Mississippi River. The common pawpaw has the great distinction of bearing the largest fruit native to North America. Paw Paw tree at the Tertulias Orchard in North Philadelphia. The late-September day remains the only time I’ve ever tried a pawpaw, but after reading up on them for this blog post, I’m looking forward to trying them again when they’re ripe this September. Many say that pawpaws have a rich banana flavor with hints of pineapple or mango, an observation reflected in the many nicknames the pawpaw has earned in North America, including the Hoosier Banana, the Poor-Man’s Banana, and, my personal favorite, the Banango. The texture I found strange–it’s often been described as “custard-like”–and the flavor was very particular. The fruits had yellow-green skin, and were somewhat lumpy and filled with large, dark seeds that were easy to squeeze out. I was perplexed these fruits were native to the area, growing right down the street, and I’d never even heard of them. She and her husband had gone foraging for them on Swarthmore College’s campus before heading our way. I first encountered the pawpaw one late-September day when my former elementary school art teacher came to my parents’ house for dinner.
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