![]() The men were in today’s state of Missouri, hurrying back downstream to St. Pawpaws in Missouri history: In the middle of September 1806, the famous Lewis and Clark expedition up the Missouri River was nearly over. ![]() When English speakers later encountered Asimina triloba, they applied the name to that species. Papayas were often called pawpaws by English speakers in the Caribbean in the 1500s and 1600s. The name “pawpaw” apparently is derived from the Spanish word papaya, which is the name of an unrelated fruit that nevertheless also has big leaves and big, juicy, green-skinned fruits. If you’re hankering for pawpaws and they’re out of season, try looking for their relatives in the produce sections of groceries, especially international groceries that sell Asian or Latin American fruits. All have a sweet banana/pineapple flavor, a creamy texture, and the same basic green-skinned, multiseeded fruit structure. If you love tropical fruits, you might be familiar with some other species that are in the same family: the cherimoya, custard apple, sweetsop, and soursop (or guanábana). There’s a Paw Paw village and a Paw Paw Creek in Sullivan County, in northern Missouri. There are many historical medicinal uses. Pawpaw extract is being studied as a possible cancer-fighting drug. The wood has no commercial use, but the inner bark was woven into a fiber cloth by Native Americans, and pioneers used it for stringing fish. It has even been used for flavoring beer! Some towns in the eastern United States have begun having annual pawpaw festivals. If you want fruit, plant two unrelated trees so they can cross-pollinate. New cultivated varieties are becoming available. Pawpaw is increasingly popular as a native landscaping and fruit tree and has become one of the top choices as an edible native tree. “Way down yonder in the pawpaw patch” is an old song you might be familiar with - but today, surprisingly few Missourians know a pawpaw tree when they see one. Louis students, the pawpaw was named Missouri's official state fruit tree. All photos by Mary Lee Epps.In 2019, after lobbying and testifying by a group of St. This article first appeared in the Fall, 2019 edition of The Declaration, the newsletter of the Jefferson Chapter of VNPS. Peterson Field Guide to Moths, by David Beadle and Seabrooke Leckie, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2012.Butterflies through Binoculars: the East, by Jeffrey Glassberg, Oxford University Press, 1999.Wagner, Princeton Field Guides, Princeton University Press, 2005. Caterpillars of Eastern North America, by David L.Asimina triloba, Digital Atlas of the Virginia Flora.Eurytides Marcellus, by Leticia Davila 2001, Animal Diversity Web.Butler, Entomology and Nematology Department, University of Florida. ![]() Featured Creatures: Zebra Swallowtail, by Donald W.Connections: The Pawpaw Tree and the Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly, by Laura Seale, Blue Ridge Discovery Center.Hormaza, Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University. The Pawpaw, a Forgotten North American Fruit Tree, by Jose I.Layne, Kentucky State University Extension Service. Pawpaw Description and Nutritional Information, by Snake C.Want to know more? Here are my helpful references: (My first thought was that this was a way to assure that some eggs escaped predators, but apparently the caterpillars can be cannibalistic so that scattering the eggs helps protect the caterpillars from each other.) ![]() Instead it lay only one egg on a given leaf. She soon realized that the butterfly was laying eggs on the newly emerging leaves, but it didn’t simply choose a likely leaf and deposit a mass of eggs. In mid-April a couple of years ago my daughter, Mary Jane, who spends a great deal of time in the woods observing nature, was watching a zebra swallowtail butterfly flitting about a pawpaw tree that was just leafing out. Zebra swallowtail caterpillars, by ingesting these compounds, make themselves unpalatable to many predators. If you see a zebra swallowtail around our part of Virginia, you can be sure that there are pawpaws nearby.Ĭompounds called acetogenins in the leaves and leaf twigs are repellent to most insects, birds and browsing mammals. In the Deep South there are a few other species of Asimina that can host the caterpillar but in most of Virginia and in states farther north, Asimina triloba is the only host. The zebra swallowtail is beautiful with dramatic black and white stripes enhanced by long swallowtails and touches of red. One of the most attractive features of pawpaw is that it is host plant to the caterpillar of the zebra swallowtail butterfly ( Protographium marcellus, formerly Eurytides marcellus). Zebra Swallowtail Newly Emerged from Chrysalis ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |