PawPaw (Asimina triloba). An understory small tree or large bush. Native to eastern North America. There are patches of them here and there up here in the mountains. And for a few years I had three or four individual PawPaw trees growing in my yard. Ones that I had planted. I was thoroughly enjoying them. One had even bloomed for me. Then came the clippers. Not intentional clippers but they clipped nonetheless. All the PawPaw trees got cut down. Ack!
Since then I’ve planted three new, tiny, PawPaw trees. Two have survived. But I’ve had a surprise. Where the clippers did their accidental thing, where the trees were cut down, they are coming up again, from root suckers that under normal circumstances form colonies or thickets.
The reason for my fascination with PawPaws? They’re the host plant of one of my favorite butterflies, the Zebra Swallowtail (Eurytides marcellus). Plant them and these butterflies will come.
And all is well in the PawPaw Patch.
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