Bartram Trail Society of Florida
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    • Sites 1 thru 8
      • Site 1 Palmetto Bluff / Bridgeport
      • Site 2 Forrester Point
      • Site 3 Grays Creek
      • Site 4 Palatka
      • Site 5 Ravine Gardens
      • Site 6 Waterworks / Puc Puggy
      • Site 7 Rollestown
      • Site 8 Dunns Creek
    • Sites 9 thru 16
      • Site 9 Crescent Lake Campsite
      • Site 10 Bear Island
      • Site 11 Murphy Island / Dunns Island
      • Site 12 Seven Sisters Islands
      • Site 13 Spalding’s Lower Store
      • Site 14 Johnson’s Spring
      • Site 15 Satsuma Spring
      • Site 16 Nashua Spring
    • Sites 17 thru 24
      • Site 17 Welaka Spring
      • Site 18 Johnson’s Bluff
      • Site 19 Mount Hope / Beecher Pt
      • Site 20 & 22 Beecher Springs
      • Site 21 Mount Royal
      • Site 23 Georgetown
      • Site 24 Bryan’s and Drayton Island
    • Sites 25 thru 32
      • Site 25 Bryan’s and Drayton Island
      • Site 26 Orange / Lake George Points
      • Site 27 Rocky Point
      • Site 28 Salt Springs Run
      • Site 29 Salt Springs
      • Site 30 Cowpen Lake / Halfway Pond
      • Site 31 Deep Creek
      • Site 32 The Beautiful Isle / Drayton Island
      • Grandview – Provisional Site
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Dwarf Pawpaws

Bartrams Dwarf PawpawsPhoto Gallery

Family ANNONACEAE (Custard Apple Family).

Pawpaws in pinelands “south of the Alatamaha River” (Georgia)….; See Bartram, Travels, 1791, Part I, Chapter III.

WOOLY PAWPAW, Asimina incarna (Bartr.) Exell.

…ascending some sand-hills, I observed a new and most beautiful species of Annona having clusters of large white fragrant flowers… He later reported this pawpaw from west of Spalding’s Lower Store.

The buds and beautiful white flowers appear on their 24-36 inch stems before or as the plant gets its leaves. The leaves are pale green with the tops and bottoms fuzzy with whitish-colored hairs.  Their large ripened fruits are important food for wildlife. Look for this spectacular flowering shrub in late March and April in almost any sandhills, open sandy pastures or disturbed dry roadside in Putnam County.  Crush a leaf of a pawpaw and you will smell the characteristic acrid odor…an easy method to distinguish pawpaws from other local plants.

DWARF PAWPAW, Asimina pygmaea (Bartr.) Dunal.

…a very curious species of Annona.  It is very dwarf, the stems seldom extending from the earth more than a foot or eighteen inches, and are weak and almost decumbent. The leaves are long, extremely narrow, almost lineal.

The pygmy pawpaw is known from north Florida and Camden County, Georgia. Bartram claims his plants were found south of the Altamaha River in Georgia. Its flowers are pale green and vibrant maroon, with flowering and fruiting between May and June. Each flower has two whorls of three petals each. Flowers have both male and female parts but each part matures at different rates, so to limit self-fertilization. The fruits ripen for a short time before they spoil. Hybrids with A. incana are occasionally found with candy-striped white and maroon petals. Like wooly pawpaws, pygmy pawpaws occur in sandhill and flatwoods habitats, but they tend to be much less common.

Both pawpaws occur throughout Putnam County and represent host plants for caterpillars of the zebra swallowtail.

Two other kinds of pawpaws, reticulate pawpaw (Asimina reticulate) and narrowleaf pawpaw (Asimina angustifolia), are depicted in the flower mural in downtown Palatka, but neither one of them are mentioned by Bartram in his Travels.

Dwarf Pawpaw – Photos by Richard FranzDwarf Pawpaw – Photos by Richard Franz
Dwarf Pawpaw – Photos by Richard FranzDwarf Pawpaw – Photos by Richard Franz
Dwarf Pawpaw – Photos by Richard FranzDwarf Pawpaw – Photos by Richard Franz
Dwarf Pawpaw – Photos by Richard FranzDwarf Pawpaw – Photos by Richard Franz
Dwarf Pawpaw – Photos by Richard FranzDwarf Pawpaw – Photos by Richard Franz
 
 

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