Dilip Walse Patil

Scientific Name : Carica papaya L.

Category : Angiosperms

Status : Alive

Habit : A small tree usually dioecious with milky juice. Leaves : Spirally arranged, exstipulate, long-stalked, palmately divided usually 7-fid, lobes ovate, acute, variously lobed. Flowers : Bisexual and unisexual. The plants being monoecious or dioecious, the female inflorescences are one to three-flowered, while the terminal flowers are sometimes bisexual or pure female. The flowers are pentamerous and regular. Male flower-Calyx 5 lobed, small, petals 5, united into a slender tube, lobes contorted or valvate. Stamens 10 in two whorls at different levels on the petals, anthers, erect, introrse. Female flower-solitary axillay or in clusters. Calyx as in male, petals at first connivent but finally free, no staminodes, ovary superior, sessile, one celled, unilocular, ovules many, anatropous, on parietal placentas, on 5-lines from the wall. Style short, stigmas 5, lobed. Fruit : A big fleshy berry. Seeds : Many, black ovoid, endosperm and aril present. Flowering and Fruiting Time : Throughout year Significance : Cultivated everywhere for its fruits. The green fruit is used to make meat tender, it is also prickled. It contains an active peptonizing ferment, called Papain, which is used in medicine and in dyspepsia. The milky juice is employed to cure ringworm and the leaves are used to expel Guinea-worm and also applied on warts, and corns to be removed from the skin. The ripe fruit is much used chiefly to cure digestive troubles.