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Low toxicity🍽️ Edible

🥭 Pawpaw

Asimina triloba · Annonacées

🍁 North America
🧠 To remember it“The pawpaw, the tropical mango that survived the winter” — the only tropical-tasting wild fruit growing as far north as bordering Quebec.
Pawpaw — Asimina triloba

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Small understory tree with large, teardrop-shaped leaves, the only member of the tropical Annonaceae family (soursop and custard apple family) hardy to the temperate climate of eastern North America. Foul-smelling drooping purple flowers bloom in spring before the leaves appear; smooth-skinned green fruits grow in small clusters, resembling a short mango, ripening in late summer.

  1. alternate, teardrop-shaped leaves, 15-30 cm, foul bell-pepper smell when crushed
  2. dark purple 6-petaled flowers, foul-smelling (pollinated by flies)
  3. greenish-yellow fruit shaped like a small mango, 8-15 cm
  4. grows in clonal colonies under the forest canopy
Size3-12 m
Floweringmarch-may, ripe fruit late august-october
Habitatmoist, rich understory, riverbanks, hardwood forests, from southern Ontario and New England down to the Appalachians and the Southeast

⚠️ Not to be confused with

No known dangerous confusionaucun

To tell them apart: the large, foul-smelling teardrop leaf, the foul-smelling dark purple flowers, and the large greenish-yellow fruit shaped like a short mango are not found on any other temperate North American understory tree

🍽️ Eating it

Partspulp of the ripe fruit
Seasonlate august to october
Tastetropical, reminiscent of a mix of banana, mango, and pineapple; creamy texture

Preparation : eat raw when fully ripe (the skin yields to gentle pressure, like a ripe avocado); spit out the large black inedible seeds; the pulp works great in ice cream, bread, and smoothies just like banana, which it often replaces in adapted recipes

💊 Healing with it

no notable established traditional medicinal use; conversely, the bark and seeds have documented use as a natural insecticide/pesticide among certain Indigenous nations

Level of evidence : traditional use — Potts et al., "Annonacin in Asimina triloba fruit: implication for neurotoxicity", PubMed 22130466

⚠️ the pulp itself contains low amounts of acetogenins (including annonacin, averaging 0.070 mg/g in the pulp according to a 2015 LC-HRMS study), neurotoxic compounds linked to neurodegenerative issues under chronic and heavy exposure (by analogy with soursop, Annona muricata); leaves, seeds, and bark contain significantly more and must never be consumed; occasional consumption of ripe pulp remains considered safe in current literature, but daily, prolonged consumption is discouraged as a precaution

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

  • inner bark fiber used for cordage by Indigenous peoples and settlers
  • seeds and bark used as a traditional natural insecticide
Sources (3)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.