Pawpaw Buds: Leaf Buds and Flower Buds

No leaves. No fruit. Just twigs. Just a bundle of twigs sticking up out of the ground. That's what winter might mean to some pawpaw watchers--but only if those pawpaw watchers weren't dedicated to watching closely. For dedicated watchers, winter is the time for looking at pawpaw buds and divining what they contain, based on their shapes and positions on the tree.

Here's one of the pawpaws, with buds all gauzy. Let's take a closer look...

The bud at the end of the twig is called the terminal bud, promising to extend the twig's length during spring and summer, maybe by six to twelve inches.

This photo has the lower bud in better focus. The lower bud is called a lateral bud (that's the name, I understand, for any bud that's not at the end of a twig). This lateral bud is a leaf bud, containing a leaf or a new green twig that will emerge in the spring. 

Terminal bud with two lateral leaf buds

Here's another lateral bud, but it's not a leaf bud. It's a fruit bud. You can see the difference even in winter, maybe especially in winter, because the fruit bud is round and seems more furry than the leaf bud. With any luck, this fruit bud will develop into a pawpaw that we'll pick this September. With an added measure of luck, the bud will develop into a cluster of five pawpaws, also ready in September. With something far beyond an added measure of luck, this cluster of five pawpaws will contain a seed that will give rise to a pawpaw tree that will become world famous for prolifically producing large fruit that tastes like the most divine custard, mixed with a soul-crushingly exquisite butterscotch syrup.

Same fruit bud but closer. Below the fruit bud, you can see the leaf scar (a horseshoe with half-dozen nail holes), where the leaf fell from in the autumn, leaving the fruit bud exposed through the winter.

As dedicated pawpaw-watchers know, there's so much more than twigs going on in winter.

First Fruits of Audubon's The Birds of America (1827-1838)

In our house, John James Audubon's The Birds of America (published in installments between 1827 and 1838) has been legendary. In part, it's because this volume (measuring a life-sized 39 inches tall by 26 inches wide) is one of the most coveted and expensive books in the world, with a price hovering at around $10 million (give or take a million, depending on the day). But it's also legendary in our house because we've known that Audubon's The Birds of America is the origin of one of the world's most iconic paintings of a pawpaw (as yellow-billed cuckoos frolic among the pawpaw's leaves and branches). This painting is so iconic that it's the very first image in the "Gallery" section of the Peterson Pawpaws website. 

So we were elated a few months ago when we were out at Barnes and Noble and saw a reproduction of The Birds of America (for just $20, virtually a 100% discount off the price of the original article). We snatched it up and hid it away to give ourselves for Christmas.

On Christmas we opened the volume and saw a few things we hadn't known about... 

For instance, we hadn't known that the wild turkey is the first bird to appear in this venerable book.

And we hadn't known that the yellow-billed cuckoo is the second bird to appear in the book.

But if we had known the yellow-billed cuckoo would appear on the second plate in the book, we also would have known that the second plate would showcase a delightful cluster of pawpaw fruits. Imagine that...the pawpaw appearing on the second page of what rivals Shakespeare's First Folio as the most coveted book in the world! 

In case you need me to put a finer point on this, let me point out the pawpaws, and specifically note that although they appear on the second plate of The Birds of America, they appear on the first plate that includes any fruit, so the pawpaws of this cluster are the first fruits of the most prized American book.

For interest, I'm including the caption, which lists the Yellow-billed Cuckoo as the star of the illustration but also notes that the pawpaw, "Popaw Porceliatriloba," is the plant. Since the early 1800s, the Latin name has changed to Asimina triloba of course.