Theme Thursday - Three Little Paw Paw Trees

Today I spent several hours going through the Arboretum at the Tulsa Garden center. In the 3 acre wood are Examples of over 100 trees and hardy shrubs, mostly native to Oklahoma or at least very hardy here. These are large well established trees for the most part, and the visitor is able to see the health and mature appearance of the tree and evaluate its suitability for possible use in the visitors home of business. Each tree is identified by a plaque set in the ground near the tree. The Arboretum is a valuable free resource for anyone who cares to use it.  There are far too many trees to try and share at one time.  I imagine that the remainder will show up as posts to this blog over time.


The Common Paw Paw Tree, Asimina Triloba, has a number of local names such as prairie banana, Ozark banana, or the poor man's banana. The pawpaw is native to shady, rich bottom lands, where it often forms a dense undergrowth in the forest.

The large leaves are alternate, simple, oval shaped, ten to twelve inches long, four to five broad, wedge-shaped at base.   Where it dominates a tract it appears as a thicket of small slender trees, whose great leaves are borne so close together at the ends of the branches, and which cover each other so symmetrically that they appear to be part of the same tree.

The fruit is a large edible berry,up to 6 inches long and 3 inches broad, weighing up to 1 pound, with numerous seeds; it is green when unripe, maturing to yellow or brown. It has a flavor somewhat similar to both banana and mango, varying significantly by cultivar, and has more protein than most fruits. The fruits are quite popular, but the shelf life of the ripe fruit is almost non-existent, for it soon ripens to the point of fermentation. Those who wish to preserve the fruit for the future do so by dehydration, making it into jams or jellies, or pressure canning by using the numerical values for bananas. In southern West Virginia pawpaws are made into a native version of banana nut cake or fruit cake, and baked inside canning jars, the lids heat-sealed to keep the food for at least a year.


The Thursday Theme for this week was something related to the number 3.  Since these  common Paw paw trees are planted in a group of three, and since this Asimina Triloba has leaves which typically are clustered 3 to a bud, I think we should qualify.  Please enjoy and comment.

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