Getting Acquainted with the Trees

by J. Horace McFarland

The papaw in bloom

But it is the very handsome and distinct little tree, with its decidedly odd flowers, I would celebrate, rather than the fruits. This tree, rather common to shady places in eastern America as far north as New York, is worth much attention, and worth planting for its spreading richness of foliage. The leaves are large, and seem to carry into the cold North a hint of warmth and of luxuriant growth not common, by any means—I know of only one other hardy tree, the cucumber magnolia, with an approaching character. The arrangement of these handsome papaw leaves on the branches, too, makes the complete mass of regularly shaped greenery that is the special characteristic of this escape from the tropics; and, since I have seen the real papaw of the West Indies in full glory, I am more than ever glad for the handsomer tree that belongs to the regions of cold and vigor.

Flowers of the papaw

The form of our papaw, or Asimina triloba—the botanical name is rather pleasing—is noticeable, and as characteristic as its leafage. See these side branches, leaving the slender central stem with a graceful up-curve, but almost at once swinging down, only to again curve upward at the ends! Are they not graceful? Such branches as these point nature's marvelous engineering, to appreciate which one needs only to try to imagine a structure of equal grace and efficiency, made with any material of the arts. How awkward and clumsy steel would be, or other metal!

Along these swinging curved branches, as we see them in the April winds, there appear hints of the leaf richness that is to come—but something else as well. These darkest purple-red petals, almost black, as they change from the green of their opening hue, make up the peculiar flowers of the papaw. There is gold in the heart of the flower, not hid from the bees, and there is much of interest for the seeker for spring knowledge as well; though I advise him not to smell the flowers. Almost the exact antithesis of the dogwood is the bloom of this tree; for, both starting green when first unfolded from the buds, the papaw's flowers advance through browns and yellows, dully mingled, to the deep vinous red of maturity. The dogwood's final banner of white is unfolded through its progress of greens, about the same time or a little later.

A pleasant and peculiar small tree is this papaw, not nearly so well known or so highly esteemed as it ought to be.

Another tree with edible fruits—but here there will be a dispute, perhaps!—is the persimmon. I mean the American persimmon, indissolubly associated in our own Southland with the darky and the 'possum, but also well distributed over Eastern North America as far north as Connecticut. The botanical name of the genus is Diospyros, liberally translated as "fruit of the gods," or "Jove's fruit." If his highness of Olympus was, by any chance, well acquainted with our 'simmon just before frost, he must have had a copper-lined mouth, to choose it as his peculiar fruit!

Making a moderate-sized tree of peculiar and pleasing form, its branches twisting regardless of symmetry, the persimmon in Pennsylvania likes the country roadsides, especially along loamy banks. Here it has unequaled opportunity for hanging out its attractively colored fruits. As one drives along in early fall, just before hard frost, these fine-looking little tomato-like globes of orange and red are advertised in the wind by the absence of the early dropping foliage. They look luscious and tempting; indeed, they are tempting! Past experience—you need but one—had prepared me for this "bunko" fruit; but my friend would not believe me, one day in early October—he must taste for himself. Taste he did, and generously, for the first bite is pleasing, and does not alarm, wherefore he had time, before his insulted nerves of mouth and tongue gave full warning, to absorb two of the 'simmons. Whew! What a face he made when the puckering juice got to work, and convinced him that he had been sucking a disguised lump of alum. Choking and gasping, he called for the water we were far from; and he won't try an unfrosted persimmon again!