Description

Asimina triloba, the American pawpaw, is native to the Eastern, Southern, and Midwestern United States and adjacent Ontario, Canada, from New York west to southeastern Nebraska, and south to northern Florida and eastern Texas.

The tree commonly grows in floodplains and shady, rich bottomlands, where it often forms a dense, clonally spreading undergrowth in the forest, often appearing as a patch or thicket of individual small slender trees. Pawpaws are not the first to colonize a disturbed site (arriving roughly four years after a clearcut), but may become dominant and slow the establishment of oaks and hickories. Although shade-tolerant, pawpaws do not persist in undisturbed old growth forest.

The fruit of the pawpaw “looks a bit like mango, but with pale yellow, custardy, spoonable flesh and black, easy-to-remove seeds.” Wild-collected pawpaw fruits, ripe in late Summer to early Autumn, have long been a favorite treat throughout the tree’s extensive native range in eastern North America, and on occasion are sold locally at farmers’ markets. Pawpaw fruits have a sweet, custardish flavor somewhat similar to banana, mango, and cantaloupe, with more protein than most fruits. American agronomist E. Lewis Sturtevant described pawpaws as.. …”a natural custard, too luscious for the relish of most people”.