Tag Archives: hermaphrodite plants

Papaya and The Sexes

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For the first 21 years I lived here, I always had a producing papaya tree. When I knew one was within two years of its life span, I would plant another and by the time the last one was no more, the next one would be producing fruit. This is now the only papaya tree left, and it has been two years in producing fuit, but it is very strange fruit indeed as instead of growing in a clump at the top, the papayas grow at the end of very long cordlike stems that hang down a few feet from the stem.  Pasiano told me today that this is a male tree and that the fruit is inedible, but my next door neighbor, who I gave a tree to from the same seed that grew this one, says their tree is growing fruit in the same manner and revealed that they are hermaphrodite trees!  I Googled the term and this is what I learned:

Papayas come in three sexual varieties: male, female and hermaphrodite. The hermaphrodite produces the flavorful fruit that is sold commercially.

Every day a new surprise!!! David and Sergio next door are netting their papayas to protect them. Today I planted new seed and was planning on cutting my tree down, but guess I’ll do the same and bag my fruit and see what happens. Monkey see, monkey do.

Mexican Color: Cee’s Flower of the Day Challenge, 10/1/15

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                                                     Mexican Color

I have spent hours trying to identify this plant and I’m no closer now than I was a year ago.  Whatever it is, Here it is again in detail. The leaves look like a heliconia or ginger, but although I once found a picture of it by Googling heliconia, I think it was just a random picture placed in that category as it wasn’t labeled at all and I can’t find it elsewhere. *Version 4 Version 3 IMG_5412 IMG_5417*News Flash!!! My lovely, smart, kind, curious, researching genius friend Marilyn Armstrong has identified this plant I’ve been trying to identify for fourteen years!  After she told me the various names for it, I looked it up in Wikipedia and this is some fascinating information about it:

Canna indica is a perennial growing to between 0.5 m and 2.5 m, depending on the variety. It is hardy to zone 10 and is frost tender. The flowers are hermaphrodite.[3][4][5][6] Canna indica sps. can be used for the treatment of industrial waste waters through constructed wetlands. It is effective for the removal of high organic load, color and chlorinated organic compounds from paper mill wastewater.[7][8]

The seeds are small, globular, black pellets, hard and dense enough to sink in water.[5] They resemble shotgun pellets giving rise to the plant’s common name of Indian Shot.[citation needed] The seeds are hard enough to shoot through wood and still survive and later germinate. According to the BBC “The story goes that during the Indian Mutiny of the 19th century, soldiers used the seeds of a Canna indica when they ran out of bullets.“[9]

“Cee” more flowers HERE.