Papaw
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Papaw. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a small South American tree of the natural order Passifloracea (formerly made the type of a small family, Papayaceæ), which has now been introduced into many tropical and subtropical countries. The fruit is eaten either raw or boiled. The juice of the fruit and the sap of the tree render tough meat tender, even the exhalations from the tree have this property, and joints of meat, fowls, etc., are hung among its branches to prepare them for the table. The Chamburu of Brazil is remarkable for the extremely acrid and poisonous character of its juice, and the disgusting stercoraceous odor of its flowers. In the United States the name papaw is given a small tree of the natural order Anonaceæ, the fruit of which, a large oval berry, three inches long, with soft, insipid pulp, is eaten by negroes.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a small tree or shrub of eastern North America . There are eight species in the United States , two of which are in cultivation for their large, showy spring flowers and handsome foliage. The common Indian papaw is a small tree noted for fleshy berries from two to six inches long. This papaw grows native from Kansas to New York and southward. The fruit has a rich brown color. It has a highly aromatic flavor. The seed is large. It has been suggested that the papaw is capable of development into an important American fruit. The papaw of the tropics, quite another thing, is the fruit of a species of palm. This fruit has a shape, color, and length that has gained for it the name of false banana.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's put the tropical papaw in the passion-flower family; it is now placed in the Caricaceae as Carica papaya, and Aiton's 1910 claim that it is "the fruit of a species of palm" was simply wrong — papaya trees are not palms at all. The meat-tenderizing property Collier's described has a name and an industry: the enzyme papain, extracted from the latex, is sold worldwide as a tenderizer and used in brewing and pharmaceuticals. Papaya is now a major commercial crop, and the virus-resistant genetically engineered 'Rainbow' papaya, approved in 1998, became one of the first GM fruits grown at scale in Hawaii. Aiton's hope that the American papaw (Asimina triloba) was "capable of development into an important American fruit" has been pursued since the 1990s by a breeding program at Kentucky State University, which has released named cultivars, though the fruit's short shelf life still keeps it out of ordinary supermarkets.
Written for this edition, 2026.