atoll research bulletin no. 392 the flora of - Smithsonian Institution ...

C ARICACEAE (Papaya Family)
Carica papaya L. "papaya", "pawpaw"
dababaia, dababaiya (N); te mwemweara, te babaia (K); olesi (T)
Pre-World War I introduction. Trop. America. Occasional. Soft-wooded, un- or
few-branched, rather palm-like, small, quick-growing tree, up to 4 m or higher, with
thick, hollow, tapering, nearly smooth trunks or stems with light bark and numerous
almost heart-shaped leaf-scars, copious, thick, sticky, irritating milky sap, and leaves that
drop as the tree grows; trees usually male or female, although some are bisexual
(hermaphroditic) with both male and female flowers on the same tree; leaves, up to 60
cm or more across, alternate, clustered near top, large, round in outline, deeply pal-
mately 7- to 11-lobed, the lobes irregularly acuminately toothed and lobed; petioles,
longer than blade, often over 1 m long, hollow; male flowers, about 2 cm wide,
numerous, white or cream-colored, fragrant, borne on loose clusters on long axillary
peduncles, 30 to 90 cm long; female flowers, about 4 to 6 cm wide, white, fragrant,
subsessile, 5-petaled, solitary or few together in leaf axils; fruit, 10 to 40 cm long,
variably shaped from subglobose or pear-shaped to cylindrical, green turning yellow or
orange, with orange to red-orange flesh; seeds, 3 to 5 mm long, globose, many, around
the edges of a central cavity, dark gray-green to black, wrinkled, caper-like, enclosed in
a firm gelatinous membrane. Fruit tree in home gardens and in contract worker gardens
at Location and the Topside Workshops. Ripe fruit eaten, and made into jam, primarily
by resident European community; fruit known to be a laxative; juice and flesh from
green fruit (which contains the enzyme papain) used to tenderize pork and beef; white sap
from small immature fruit used as a cure for ringworm; fragrant flowers used in
garlands; and hollow leaf petioles used by children as "pea shooters" for the fruit of
Tourncfortia argcwtca (irin) . Common, often naturalized, in houseyard gardens and
agricultural areas and an important local cash crop throughout the Pacific, and a
commercial export crop in areas such as Hawaii, Fiji, Tonga and the Cook Islands. 2,
3(58694), 5, 6, 7, 8.
CASUARINACEAE (Casuarina Family)
Casuarina equisetifolia L. "casuarina" , "she oak", "ironwood", "beefwood"
tanenbaum (German for Christmas tree)(N); te katurina, te burukam (K); toa (T)
syn. C. litorca L.
- -- -- - - -- - -- - - -- -- - -- - -
Pre-World War I introduction. Indian Ocean to Polynesia and Micronesia.
Occasional. Medium to large, hard-wooded, fast-growing, pine-like tree, up to 15 m or
higher, with numerous, short-lived, long, thin, drooping, needle-like, gray-green,
cylindrical, jointed, striate, photosynthetic branchlets; leaves, whorled, reduced to