By LESLIE BISHOP, guest columnist
Every day brings unexpected gifts.
Yesterday, on a hike in Morgan-Monroe State Forest, a friend pulled a piece of fruit from his backpack. He poked his thumb through the dark green peel and broke the fruit in two. He handed a half to me, and the flavors of the tropics exploded in my mouth.
This was not an exotic tropical fruit but a perfectly ripe pawpaw, a native fruit of Indiana.
The pale yellow flesh has the texture of a ripe banana and is studded with shiny brown seeds the size of lima beans. The distinctive flavor is hard to capture in words — but I think of a smoothie made of mango, banana, pineapple and papaya. I think of the taste of my summer childhood in Tennessee. I think of the taste of fresh discovery.
To share a pawpaw is a generous act. These fruits cannot be found in grocery stores; you must search the forests and collect them before the raccoons get them.
The pawpaw, Asiminia triloba, is the most northern representative of a mainly tropical and subtropical family of plants (Annonaceae). In our deciduous hardwood forests of Indiana, pawpaws are shade-tolerant small trees that thrive in the understory in moist and well-drained soils. You often find small groves of pawpaws due to vegetative reproduction. A single tree can produce numerous root suckers that each grows into an additional tree. This type of asexual reproduction results in a patch of genetically identical individuals.
In early spring, I often see the beautiful, zebra swallowtail butterfly with its characteristic black and white stripes and long wing “tails” flitting through the forest understory. This is not a coincidence. Male zebra swallowtails will patrol the area while females search for pawpaw trees whose leaf buds are just beginning to open. After they mate, the females lay their eggs on newly emerging leaves. The larval caterpillars feed exclusively on pawpaw leaves and complete their metamorphosis on the plant.
Pawpaws produce flowers in early spring before the leaves emerge. The small, maroon flowers depend on insects for pollination. In fact, they are incapable of self-pollination because their stigmas are receptive before the pollen is released from the anthers (called protogynous dichogamy).
The flowers emit a foul smell attractive to certain species of flies and beetles that normally lay their eggs in decaying flesh. The flies are fooled more than once and transfer the pollen from one plant to another.
The resulting fruit develop slowly over the summer and mature in September. Unfortunately, these insect pollinators are not as reliable as bees, and pawpaws usually have a very poor fruit set. Folks who raise pawpaws usually hand-pollinate their plants to ensure fruit production.
Growing pawpaws for profit is becoming an increasingly trendy thing to do, with pawpaws selling for $15 per pound in farmers markets.
With numerous nicknames such as Hoosier Banana and Quaker Delight, pawpaws are appearing on menus as puddings, sorbets and sauces in restaurants featuring local foods. There are even some microbreweries that feature an autumn pawpaw beer.
Despite these new trends, the best way to enjoy a pawpaw is to find one in the forest, open it up and slurp away. Half of the fun is the search.
If you look for me in September, chances are you will find me “way down yonder in the pawpaw patch,” and I will share my treasures with you.
Leslie Bishop is a Brown County resident and retired biology professor from Earlham College. She can be reached through the newspaper at [email protected].
