Gardening with Wilson

Just early last week, I received yet another email that reported an interesting plant discovery by Mr Keneric Ng from the National Parks Board (NParks).  This time, he spotted an unusual form of papaya tree (Carica papaya) that was found growing in a wasteland in the vicinity of Farrer Road.

Keneric’s new find - an unlikely beauty growing in a wasteland.

All the papaya trees I have come across have green petioles. What was so different about this papaya tree that Keneric had documented was that it has purple petioles. This is the first time that I have been told that such a papaya existed! This feature somehow made this papaya tree look a little more ornamental that its all-green counterparts. In fact, I have always thought that well-grown papaya trees with their umbrella-shaped crowns  that feature large palmate leaves do make stately statements for a tropical garden.

Purple coloured petioles appear to not be restricted to papayas only. It can also be seen in cassavas, except that in this case, the petiole may be coloured red instead of purple.

With this morphological feature in mind, I recall that it is not unique to just papayas. The common cassava that we eat in desserts and a source of tapioca flour also has cultivars that have either all-green petioles or those that has red/purple coloured petioles.

A female flower of the papaya which usually occurs singly or in a small bunch consisting of a few flowers.

From the look of the flower this purple-petioled papaya plant had produced, it could either be a  female plant or a hermaphadite and hence, it has the ability to produce fruit. I wonder whether will the fruits of this plant be purple or green when young and would they turn orange when ripe?

Take a look at the two pictures of similar-looking papaya plants below (accessible via the URLs) which I managed to find via the Google search engine that were put on the New York Botanical Gardens’ Ethnobotany and Floristics of Belize Photo Gallery:

Male plant with flowers in sprays – http://www.nybg.org/bsci/belize/Carica_papaya_1.jpg

Female plant with green fruits – http://www.nybg.org/bsci/belize/Carica_papaya_2.jpg