Names
This plant's scientific name is Asimina triloba. The genus name Asimina is adapted from the Native American name assimin through the French colonial asiminier. The epithet triloba in the species' scientific name refers to the flowers' three-lobed calices and doubly three-lobed corollas, the shape not unlike a tricorner hat.
The common name of this species is variously spelled pawpaw, paw paw, paw-paw, and papaw. It probably derives from the Spanish papaya, an American tropical fruit (Carica papaya) sometimes also called "papaw", perhaps because of the superficial similarity of their fruits. Asimina triloba has numerous other often very local common names, at least historically, including: wild banana, prairie banana, Indiana banana, Hoosier banana, West Virginia banana, Kansas banana, Kentucky banana, Michigan banana, Missouri banana, the poor man’s banana, Ozark banana, and banango.
Read more about this topic: Asimina Triloba
Famous quotes containing the word names:
“At night thousands of names and slogans are outlined in neon, and searchlight beams often pierce the sky, perhaps announcing a motion picture premiere, perhaps the opening of a new hamburger stand.”
—For the State of California, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Row after row with strict impunity
The headstones yield their names to the element,
The wind whirrs without recollection....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“Without infringing on the liberty we so much boast, might we not ask our professional Mayor to call upon the smokers, have them register their names in each ward, and then appoint certain thoroughfares in the city for their use, that those who feel no need of this envelopment of curling vapor, to insure protection may be relieved from a nuisance as disgusting to the olfactories as it is prejudicial to the lungs.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)