{"id":15782,"date":"2020-09-24T15:00:12","date_gmt":"2020-09-24T15:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/fnr\/extension\/?p=15782"},"modified":"2025-02-11T21:22:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T01:22:41","slug":"unexpected-plants-and-animals-of-indiana-pawpaw-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/fnr\/extension\/unexpected-plants-and-animals-of-indiana-pawpaw-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"Unexpected Plants and Animals of Indiana: Pawpaw tree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unexpected Plants and Animals of Indiana<\/a>: What is roughly the size of a potato, tastes like a banana and had its own dedicated month on the Native American Shawnee tribe\u2019s calendar?<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s not a riddle it\u2019s the pawpaw fruit, borne by the pawpaw tree (Asimina triloba<\/em>), a tree with close tropical relatives that is native to much of North America.<\/p>\n

Known affectionately as the Hoosier banana (and to Kentuckians as the Kentucky banana, and so on), the pawpaw fruit is the largest native fruit in North America and has a rich cultural and culinary history throughout the Midwest. A staple of many Native American tribes\u2019 diets, the pawpaw was also consumed by early settlers in the region and relied on during the Great Depression as a substitute to other, more expensive, fruits. Before the pawpaw became known as the Hoosier banana, it was called the poor man\u2019s banana.<\/p>\n

In recent decades, however, the pawpaw fell out of culinary vogue. While the trees can be found growing in the wild, usually in forested areas, or in backyards of the ambitious gardener, pawpaw is consumed and grown largely as a novelty.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot that many people grow pawpaws in their backyard,\u201d\u00a0Rosie Lerner<\/a>, Extension consumer horticulturist, said. \u201cIt\u2019s a native tree, has rather specific pollination requirements to be able to set fruit, is difficult to transplant and is not widely available at local nurseries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"pawpawfruit\"<\/a>

Bruce Bordelon, professor of horticulture, shows off the inside of a pawpaw fruit. Photos by Tom Campbell.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Emily Wendel, a freshman in horticulture and landscape architecture, grew up on an Indiana farm surrounded by naturally occurring pawpaw trees. While she doesn\u2019t care for the fruit, her father has developed a passion for harvesting pawpaws, eating them raw or incorporating them into different recipes. He even delivers them regularly to Wendel\u2019s grandmother who lives just down the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandma and I don\u2019t really like pawpaws raw but my dad kept bringing her buckets full,\u201d Wendel said. \u201cMy grandmother used to be a home economics teacher. She didn\u2019t want them to go to waste, so she started using them in different things. She makes this bread that we both really like.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Wendel\u2019s grandmother heard her granddaughter recently discussed and tried pawpaws in her introductory botany class, she baked a batch of bread for Wendel to bring her peers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI grew up in a small town so it was normal to bring something grandma baked to class. People would get excited,\u201d Wendel added. \u201cIn college I thought maybe people would wonder about the strange girl with the pawpaw bread. But most people were willing to try it and really enjoyed it. And it made my grandmother\u2019s day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wendel\u2019s grandmother even wrote out the recipe below for her to share with others.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though I don\u2019t always like the taste, it\u2019s really neat to have a fruit like pawpaws native to Indiana,\u201d Wendel said. \u201cI hope trying it in the bread has opened people\u2019s eyes to its uses.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For full article with pawpaw bread recipe view:<\/strong> Purdue College of Agriculture, Unexpected Plants and Animals of Indiana<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Resources<\/strong>
\nPawpaw: The Midwest Banana?<\/a>, Indiana Yard and Garden \u2013 Purdue Consumer Horticulture
\nGrowing Pawpaws<\/a>, The Education Store, Purdue Extension resource center
\nThe Nature of Teaching: Trees of the Midwest<\/a>, The Education Store
\nMidwest Fruit Pest Management Guide 2023-2024,<\/a> Purdue University<\/p>\n

Rosie Lerner<\/a>, Extension Consumer Horticulturist
\nPurdue University Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unexpected Plants and Animals of Indiana: What is roughly the size of a potato, tastes like a banana and had its own dedicated month on the Native American Shawnee tribe\u2019s calendar? It\u2019s not a riddle it\u2019s the pawpaw fruit, borne by the pawpaw tree (Asimina triloba), a tree with close tropical relatives that is native […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,45,49],"tags":[60,1252,1250,63,1251,67],"class_list":["post-15782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forestry","category-howto","category-plants","tag-forestry","tag-fruit","tag-horticulture","tag-how-to","tag-pawpaw","tag-plants","audience-for-enthusiasts","audience-for-homeowners","audience-for-landowners","audience-for-professionals"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-19 20:58:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/fnr\/extension\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/fnr\/extension\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/fnr\/extension\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/fnr\/extension\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/fnr\/extension\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15782"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/fnr\/extension\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31669,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/fnr\/extension\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15782\/revisions\/31669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/fnr\/extension\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/fnr\/extension\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/fnr\/extension\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}