Putrid Pollination

Okay, native plant aficionados: What member of the large Annonaceae family of tropical trees is a temperate native of the eastern United States? Hint: It produces a delicate, custard-like, banana-apple-ish fruit that’s almost guaranteed not to be found in commercial markets.  

​Answer: the indigenous American pawpaw, Asimina triloba, and it is in residence at Bedrock Gardens. The pawpaw is native to the eastern U.S., from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes. It's a favorite of kayakers, who pluck its fruit from riverbanks, and rural folk who know where to find its stands. But although it’s been snacked on by mankind for centuries (it was a favorite of both Thomas Jefferson and Lewis and Clark), it’s rarely cultivated.

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One reason for this may be that its fruits fall to the ground when ripe, bruise easily, and are highly perishable. (Pick them too early though, and they’ll refuse to ripen.)  Another, as discovered by Bedrock’s Jill Nooney,  is that pollination is tricky, so yearly fruit set is not guaranteed:  “Two years ago I had so much fruit I was giving it away at the fall Open House,”  she says. “Last year there were a couple flowers but no fruit.” ​

Portent of good things to come?

Along with the tricky fruit set comes the disagreeably fetid smell of the pawpaw’s blooms. It’s so  reminiscent of rotting flesh that the only pollinators it attracts are carnivorous flies and beetles. To increase pollination and ensure fruit production, Jill has decided to employ the old-time, hard-boiled method: that of hanging a decomposing animal carcass in the tree to attract the bluebottle carrion fly. The unwitting subject hanging in Bedrock’s pawpaw is a rather gnarly, road-killed squirrel. 

​You can find the pawpaw by the Baxis at Bedrock. Its fruits ripen in September. If it proves successful, squirrel’s death will cede exotic (and magically delicious) new life.

​Oh, and no worries: We promise to take the little feller down by May’s Open House! 
-- Lisa Peters O'Brien

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