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Each of us grew up with magic in our childhood, whether it was Spanish moss hanging from a live oak canopy nearly to the ground in South Georgia, a vacant lot full of abandoned treasures in New York City, elusive butterflies in a backyard flower garden in California, or brilliant gold and red vine maples in the woods of western Oregon. Some of us stayed rooted in the place we first found magic, and some of us moved far away. For those who moved, there are memories and stories to tell. And sometimes those persistent memories turn into an urge to bring them to life again.
As a landscape architect dedicated to interweaving human landscapes with native ecosystems, I’ve collaborated with my partner to include over 100 native plant species in our yard in south Eugene. As a landscape ecologist working to restore Willamette Valley native ecosystems, I’ve learned to be cautious about introducing non-native plants in my yard that can spread from where I plant them and displace our native species. At the same time, we love our yard’s fresh vegetables and fruits from around the world. And, in the midst of all that, I’m still a transplant from Michigan where I spent my formative years.
There were many magical experiences in the forests and fields of southern Michigan. One of them was hunting for pawpaws in the woods. They’re a small, understory tree that’s been in the eastern United States since 40 million years ago, when much of eastern North America was tropical or subtropical. Their closest relatives are fruits like the Cherimoya you’ll find in outdoor markets from Central to South America. They adapted and evolved as the climate changed, and by the last ice age appear to have been a staple in the diets of the megafauna, likely including giant ground sloths, mastodons and woolly mammoths. As the megafauna went extinct, Indigenous North Americans became key dispersers and cultivators, likely expanding the pawpaw’s range as they planted them in their villages. Their scientific name, Asimina triloba, comes from the Algonquin word for the three-lobed fruits, mirrored in their ranks of three sepals and two rows of three petals.
Ten years ago, I planted two small pawpaws in our yard in south Eugene. I’ve nursed them through each summer’s drought, helping them survive with shade from a persimmon planted the same year. I’ve waited patiently for fruit with the excitement of that young Michigan boy. After struggling for years to get fruit to set, I learned that the trees are cross-pollinated by flies drawn to their flowers through their mimicry of fermented odors. And so the Cornell Coop Extension recommends putting out rotting compost or raw meat to draw in the flies. I tried it and it worked(!) – leading to my biggest harvest ever this year – even if still just a few fruit.
By the end of the summer, just before the leaves turn golden yellow, the reward for the work of the flies is the sweet, creamy fruit that gave it the name “custard apple.” The scent is strong and you either like it or you don’t. I feel both like a kid in the Michigan woods and a young man sampling fruit in the central market in San Jose, Costa Rica. I’m not the only one who hears the siren call of the pawpaw. I protect each fruit from the squirrels and jays as soon as they start to ripen and send out their enticing smell to all of us fruit-eating seed dispersers.
Pawpaws aren’t known to be invasive outside their native range so I’m not worried about creating a new problem for our native ecosystems. Over millions of years, they never expanded west of eastern Kansas but now here they are in Oregon – part of a cultivated range expansion by those who love the fruit, including some like me who brought them here to remember their childhood and reexperience the taste of their luscious fruit.
I’ve also learned that by growing them here I’m taking part in a tradition with deeper roots than I understood as a boy in Michigan – a lineage from Native American cultures who valued their flavor and nutrition, created stories about them, and expanded their range. And even deeper roots in how these sweet tropical fruits tickled the palates of post-ice age mastodon and sloth, all part of the ongoing history of an ancient fruit of eastern North America whose range has now expanded to include my backyard in Eugene, Oregon.
November is here. The rains have arrived. The sun sets earlier each day. As the nights get longer, I remember spring’s promise of the deep red flowers, the expanding green fruit of summer, October’s sweet reward and November’s yellow leaves. The magic goes on.
