Pawpaw

Today I planted some pawpaw (Asimina triloba) seeds that will be used in a future floodplain restoration project.  It is a great little native tree with a unique tropical tasting fruit.  Here are some sketches of the spring flowers.  The flowers are unusual in that they are the color of raw meat and have a foul odor this is because they are pollinated by carrion flies and beetles.  Pawpaw patches are often clones of each other and since the plant is self sterile these isolated clones will never produce fruit.  So if your pawpaws are barren introduce some new genes to the patch and if that doesn’t work try throwing some road kill under the trees or try tying rotten meat to the branches to attract the proper pollinators.  Once you get the trees to fruit you will have to work hard to beat the raccoons and opossums to the fruit…