Papaya

An extraordinarily generous bearer, developing its mammary-like burdens within a year of planting, the papaya looks more like an Indian fertility goddess than a tree— which it isn’t, anyway. It is a shrub or herb or plant or whatever botanists want to call it, the branchless trunk of which grows to about 20 feet but does not harden to bark.

Atop this shaft rests a radiating crest of giant leaves under which cluster the ponderous fruits, giving the whole the look of a coconut palm. Papaya is a member of a very small family—only two genera, about thirty species—that is very closely related to passion fruit, but in no way related to the American wild fruit called pawpaw (a member of the Annonaceous family).