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Asimina triloba
Also called Dog-banana, Indian-banana, Pawpawtree, American Paw Paw, Indiana Banana, Bandango, Common Paw Paw
Pawpaw is a small deciduous tree or large shrub native to eastern North America, grown for its large, custard-flavored fruit. It is a clonal understory tree that grows best in deep, well-drained, slightly acidic soil and needs cross-pollination from at least two varieties.
Asimina triloba, the American papaw, pawpaw, paw paw, or paw-paw, among many regional names, is a species of small deciduous tree. It has large leaves and produces a large, yellowish-green to brown fruit.
The species is native to eastern North America, in a more temperate range than its tropical relatives. It is a patch-forming (clonal) understory tree of hardwood forests, being found in well-drained, deep, fertile bottomland and also hilly upland habitat.
Cultivation is best in hardiness zones 5-9 and trees take 7–8 years from seedling to fruiting. Cross-pollination of at least two different genetic varieties of the plant is recommended. Until recently, research was insufficient for horticulturalists to adopt best methods for attracting insect pollinators, as effective pollinators were not then distinguished from casual insect visitors. Therefore, some growers resort to hand pollination or use pollinator attractants, such as spraying fish emulsion or hanging chicken necks or other meat near the open flowers to attract carrion-feeding beetles. A citizen science project posted in 2021 concluded that tiny beetles were the effective pollinators. (For details, see the above Pollination section).
Pawpaws have not been cultivated for their fruits on the scale of apples or peaches, primarily because pawpaw fruits ripen to the point of fermentation soon after they are picked, and only frozen fruit stores or ships well.
Asimina is the only genus native to temperate regions within the otherwise tropical and subtropical flowering plant family Annonaceae. A. triloba has the northernmost range of any species in the family, extending north into southern Ontario, Canada. Within the United States, pawpaw is native to the eastern, southern, and midwestern states, ranging from New York westward to southeastern Nebraska, southward to eastern Texas and the panhandle of Florida. Pawpaw has even been successfully cultivated as far north as Nova Scotia, Canada and in several regions of Europe and Asia. Pawpaws typically grow in USDA hardiness zones 5 to 8, though some growers have had success cultivating them in USDA hardiness zone 4b with careful site selection and protection to compensate for the shorter growing season.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Asimina triloba by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
