Have you ever eaten a Pawpaw? No, I’m not asking you if you have a history of elderly cannibalism. I’m talking about North America’s largest tree fruit, the Pawpaw Asimina triloba. Have you ever had one?
If you haven’t, I’m not that surprised. Even though this species of tree and its fruit can be found growing in 26 states from New York south to the Florida panhandle, and west to Nebraska and Texas, it is not very common in the wild, especially fruit-bearing populations.
There are some interesting reasons why this is. For one, Pawpaws require more than one genetic variety for pollination and the resulting fruit set. As Pawpaws are a clonal tree species and any one patch is likely to be identical genetically, for successful pollination to occur, pollen must be delivered from a completely different individual plant with different genetics.
Another reason you may have never tried a Pawpaw is that their fruits, lumpy and ugly with a green skin, cannot be picked early and artificially ripened. In fact, you don’t pick Pawpaws. You pick them up off the ground just like the old song says. If they are on the tree, they are not ripe and will not continue to ripen after being picked. Pawpaws also have a short shelf-life and will rot long before they can be shipped to a store. You can sometimes find them for sale at a farmer’s market if you’re lucky.