Tree of the Week: Pawpaw (Asimina triloba)

One pawpaw fruit was spotted today. The developing green fruit blends in with the surrounding vegetation. Can you see it?

This single fruit is exciting, but also a little sad. There are several tall, mature papaw trees cohabitating along the stream. The trees are known for flowering nicely; evidence can be found on the blog post from last spring (here). Unfortunately, we never see any fruits.

Since we have three pawpaw volunteers in the collection, the mature trees must have successfully reproduced in the past. Fruits are simply few and far between. How do we make more?

Tree of the Week: Pawpaw (Asimina triloba)

Our tree of the week is pictured center. Its straight, gray trunk is flanked by two arboretum signs. This pawpaw (Asimina triloba) grows in a low, wet area of the arboretum, among Louisiana palmettos, horsetail, and swamp titi bushes. A volunteer red buckeye can also be spied in the photo.

During the fall semester of 1994, Professor Ed Leuck collected this pawpaw from Caney Lake, north of Minden, Louisiana. Professor Leuck nurtured the young tree in a container for some time before moving it to its present location in Feb. 1996. Over the past two decades the pawpaw has developed nicely, but unfortunately we do not have any notes in the arboretum catalogue concerning its fruit production. Pawpaws are known for their tasty fruits, so we will be keeping an eye on this individual, and its kin, over the next several months.

The bark of this 25-year-old pawpaw is light gray and slightly rough

During the first week of spring, we have noticed flowers and new leaves. Do pardon the light dusting of pollen; the trees in the arboretum are hard at work.

The purple pawpaw flowers hang down, resembling bells. They have an interesting, hard-to-identify fragrance, which is neither good nor bad. Note the purple hairs on the green flower stalk; the new leaves are fuzzy, too.

From below, we can see that each flower has 6 petals that are varying shades of red-purple.

A few twigs were snipped for closer inspection.

Pawpaw flowers appear singly or in clusters. In this case, we have three flowers in different stages of development on one twig.

Pawpaw flowers are more than an inch in length.

Each pawpaw bell has three purplish-green sepals.

For the past week, a fine golden dust has covered nearly all of northwest Louisiana. The upturned pawpaw bell is no exception.

You can find a few more pictures of this pawpaw tree here.


For more information about this species consult the following:
Louisiana Plant Identification and Interactive Virtual Tours (LSU AgCenter)
United States Department of Agriculture
University of Kentucky
U.S. Forest Service

Asimina triloba