Alice Crain / Flickr
Every so often , it ’s good to take a walk of life in the woods with someone newfangled . This past calendar week , I took my apprentices down to the Goldenseal Sanctuary in Athens , Ohio , run by United Plant Savers . We went on a two - hour hike with Chip Carroll , who is very conversant with the trail and is also a local to the area . Because of his personal attachment to the bema , this was like walk through his backyard , run into plants he had raised in person . In fact , there were many sphere of jeopardise native medicinals that he had a bridge player in re - planting .
One of the great benefit to walk with someone new is their different perspective . Chip introduced my class to the pawpaw Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree ( Asimina triloba ) and , for me , it was like meeting an old booster again . I was originally introduced to this Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree by my college professor at Ohio Wesleyan University . His expertise is in the Annonaceae home , which is mostly tropic . Pawpaw is the only North American instance of the family , and its wide tropical leaves run to stick out in the temperate forest . Even with such a distinctive leaf , there are a few trees that I often put off with the Asimina triloba , have me to haul out my identification Florida key to be indisputable . buffalo chip tear a folio and passed it around the radical ask us to smell it as we beat it between our finger . The smell was acrid and kerosene - like , something I had never noticed before . While members of the course crumple their noses , I laughed happily . The smell is classifiable to the pawpaw and I will never need to practice my identification key again !
The pawpaw grows in a cluster , giving rise to songs about “ the pawpaw patch ” . If you would like to originate some pawpaw , you ’ll want to get at least two to three kickoff . I ’ve ascertain them online and here in Ohio for sale at my favorite greenhouse , Scioto Gardens . institute them in a fly-by-night spot with copious , moist territory . In the spring you will discover beautiful , matt purpleness , tropical flowers emerge and the resulting fruit will start to mature .
The pawpaw yield , or poor man ’s banana tree , is super hard to distinguish . Delicious and sweet , it reminds one of many dissimilar , more well - known fruit , all at once . It was largely ignored for many year until it was total to the Slow Food Ark of Taste and launched into the judgment and hearts of the foodie cause . Now you ’ll regain it in sampling card , ice cream , yogurt , beer and more . There is a Pawpaw Festival in Albany , Ohio , that has celebrated this woodland yield for 17 age now .
Before we take the air away from the pawpaw , Chip snapped off a twig and handed it to me . The bud at the end of it has a unique shape , being both flattened and sharp . He shared with us that John Audubon did some of his first forest drawings with a pawpaw twig . The shape allowed him to do both all-embracing and fine strokes . He actually drew his yellow - billed cuckoos on a pawpaw branch . Since returning from the tour , I have been scouring my books for more information on this bit of story . I have n’t find anything yet , so I ’m reckon frontwards to the Ohio Pawpaw Festival . I ’m irrefutable someone there can assure me the rest of the chronicle .
« More of the Prescription Gardener »
