Carica papaya L.

  • Authority

    Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.

  • Family

    Caricaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Carica papaya L.

  • Description

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    Species Description - A small tree, with a simple wand-like stem, 3-6 m. tall, leafy at the top. Laves large, thick, suborbicular in outline, 2-6 dm. broad, mostly palmately 7-lobed, pale or glaucous beneath, each lobe pinnately lobed, the segments obtuse or acute, or the larger ones acuminate; petioles stout; staminate flowers in slender panicles 1-several dm. long; calyx of the staminate flowers 1-1.5 mm. long, that of the pistillate flowers 5-10 mm. long, the lobes longer than the tube; corolla yellow, that of the staminate flowers 2.5-3 cm. long, its tube slender, dilated near the top, its lobes lanceolate or elliptic-lanceolate, barely as long as the tube; corolla of the pistillate flowers longer, the petals distinct, lanceolate, twisted; berries oblong to subglobose, 0.6-3 dm. long, yellow or orange, with a milky juice.

  • Distribution

    Scrub-lands, spontaneous after cultivation, Eleuthera, on the margin of the salt pond about half way between the Glass Window and Gregory Town, Andros and Inagua : naturalized in many places in the West Indian Islands, and in Florida, its native home unknown, but, doubtless, in tropical America. Papaw.

    Eleuthera Bahamas South America| Andros Island Bahamas South America| Inagua Bahamas South America| Florida United States of America North America|