Our volunteer papaya first showed up only a couple or three months ago. Now, it’s big enough that it has flowers.
The thing about papaya trees…. There are three kinds. Those with female flowers, those with male flowers, and those with both.
Generally, trees with just male flowers are cut down. They can pollinate female flowers on both female and hermaphrodite trees, but no fruit grows on the male tree.
The fruit only grows on the female and hermaphrodite (or bisexual) trees. Hermaphrodite trees are best if you only have one tree since that way, you don’t have to worry about pollination.
Of our two previous papaya trees, one was male and the other was either female or hermaphrodite. Naturally, we chopped down the male tree.
Since I did not know how to recognize whether the flowers are male or female, I looked it up. I found this site with pictures – I like pictures! – and which gave a description:
A male papaya is distinguished by the smaller flowers borne on long stalks. Female flowers of papaya are pear shaped when unopened, and distinguished from bisexual flowers which are cylindrical.
Which means that my papaya flowers are either male or bisexual. I think. Or maybe I’m just confused.
Last time we had this dilemma, with the two previous papaya trees, we asked our trishaw driver to take a look since he apparently knows. I think it’s time to ask him again… 🙂
Laurie,
Loved hearing about your volunteer Papaya.
I hadn’t known this about the Papaya and so it is wonderful to learn that there are a variety of different gender species, which makes it that extra bit connective to our own species and shows how interchangeable gender can be.
Do you know when the tree will give fruit?
.-= Ana Goncalves´s last blog ..Blossoming wisdom =-.
I’ve learned that it’s a male papaya, so it won’t fruit. I learned this when I noticed that my mother in law had hacked it down. It is no more. 🙂
If it had been a female or a bisexual, then it would still be there and it would fruit when the tree grew another three or so feet, so fruit would have appeared in about, oh, two months and would be ripe enough to pick a few weeks or a month after that.
Maybe we’ll have another volunteer? We tend to from time to time. It’s sad when they appear in areas where they won’t last – walkways or the lawn. Papayas do not transplant well at all, so it’s best that they grow where you want them, or you leave them be. You know. 🙂