This dioecious plant has a tree-like habit but the trunk is not lignified. Usually unbranched and with clearly visible leaf scars, the trunk grows up to 7 metres in height and contains latex. The large dark green, tuft-like leaves arising from the crown in a spiral arrangement are long-stalked, palmately lobed and notched. The cream-coloured male flowers grow in long panicles, the female flowers directly on the trunk. The elongated oval berry weighs several kilograms and ripens to an orangey-red. When fertilized it contains numerous round black seeds.
This shrub-like tree can bear fruit just a year after being sown, and at the Tropenhaus it is replaced every two to three years. The fertilized female or hermaphrodite flowers of the papaya produce oblong fruit filled with seeds. Unfertilized female fruits are visibly round and hollow.
We have seven different varieties of C. papaya at the Tropenhaus and are always looking for more to meet our needs because, at around a tonne of fruit per year, the papaya is our highest yielding plant species. Papayas are sold in the shop as a fruit when orange and as a vegetable when green.
The dried seeds of the papaya are turned into papaya pepper.
Central America (Mexico to Costa Rica) and the Caribbean islands
This shrub-like tree can bear fruit just a year after being sown, and at the Tropenhaus it is replaced every two to three years. The fertilized female or hermaphrodite flowers of the papaya produce oblong fruit filled with seeds. Unfertilized female fruits are visibly round and hollow.
We have seven different varieties of C. papaya at the Tropenhaus and are always looking for more to meet our needs because, at around a tonne of fruit per year, the papaya is our highest yielding plant species. Papayas are sold in the shop as a fruit when orange and as a vegetable when green.
The dried seeds of the papaya are turned into papaya pepper.
