Papaya (Carica papaya L.) is a popular fruit native to tropical America. It is usually grown for its small to large melon-like fruit. It is a herbaceous perennial, bearing fruit continuously at the leaf axils spirally arranged along the single erect trunk. The papaya is also called papaw, pawpaw, papayer (French), melonenbaum (German), lechosa (Spanish), mamao, mamoeiro (Portuguese), mugua (Chinese) and betik (Malaysian, Indonesian).
BOTANY
Taxonomy and nomenclature
The cultivated papaya belongs to the family Caricaceae and is the only member of the genus Carica. Caricaceae is a small family of dicotyledonous plants with six genera; four of tropical American origin (Carica, Jarilla, Jacaratia, Vasconcella) and one, Cylicomorpha, from equatorial Africa. Caricaceae species have been variously classified in families such as Cucurbitaceae, Passifloraceae, Bixaceae and Papayaceae. Approximately 71 species have been described, though Badillo (1993, 2000) reduced the number to 32 species, with the following distribution: Carica, 1 species, Cylicomorpha, 2 species, Jacaratia, 5 species, Jarilla, 3 species, Vasconcella, 20 species, and Horovitzia, 1 species. Papaya (C. papaya L.) is the most important economic species in Caricaceae. Carica and Vasconcella species are dioecious, except for the monoecious Vasconcella monoica (Desf.) and some Vasconcella pubescens and the polygamous C. papaya. Most species are herbaceous, single-stemmed and erect. Other than C. papaya L., the other edible species are Vasconcella candamarcensis Hook. f., V. monoica Desf., Vasconcella erythrocarpa Heilborn, Vasconcella goudotiana Solms- Laubach and Vasconcella quercifolia Benth. and Hook (Storey, 1969). These fruit are mostly eaten cooked, being normally dry and lacking the juicy flesh of C. papaya. Another edible species, Vasconcella pentagona, is called ‘babaco’.
Origin and distribution
C. papaya has not been found wild in nature and is only distantly related to the Vasconcella species, based upon isozyme and AFLP analysis. The greatest diversity in C. papaya exists in the Yucatan–San Ignacio–Peter–Rio Motagua area of Central America. The volunteer population in this area has greater diversity than domesticated populations (Morshidi, 1996; Van Droogenbroeck et al., 2002). Papaya origins are rather uncertain, but there is some agreement among botanists that it originated in the lowlands of Central America, between southern Mexico and Nicaragua. Early distribution over a wide geographical region in Central and South America was aided by the abundance of seeds in the fruit and the seeds long viability. The accounts of 18th-century travellers and botanists indicated that seeds of papaya had been taken from the Caribbean to Malacca and on to India (Storey, 1941a). From Malacca or the Philippines, distribution continued throughout Asia and to the South Pacific region. Don Francisco Marín, a Spanish explorer and horticulturist, is credited with the introduction of papaya into Hawaii from the Marquesas Islands during the early 1800s. Papaya is now grown in all tropical countries and in many subtropical regions of the world (Anonymous, 2003).
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