Photo: Bob Peterson, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Four-petal Pawpaw

Asimina tetramera

Also called four-petaled pawpaw, fourpetal pawpaw.

A rare pawpaw of Florida's coastal sand pine scrub, with nodding flowers that open cream and turn maroon, and fruit that smells of bananas.

RareShowy flowersWildlife value

Type: Shrub
Mature height: 3–15 ft
USDA zones: 9–10
Growth rate: Slow
Sun: Full, Part
Soil moisture: Dry
Grows wild in: Sandy barrens, the coast and dry uplands
Native range: Florida See what is native in your state

Hardiness zones Find your zone by ZIP code

Four-petal pawpaw is a shrub of sand pine scrub on old dunes near the Atlantic coast, found only in Martin and Palm Beach Counties, Florida. Its nodding flowers open cream and turn dark maroon, and most have four sepals, which no other pawpaw has. About 1,300 plants survive in nine places. It is listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. Florida lists it as endangered too. Grow it in a sunny scrub garden on deep, dry sand, where its odd flowers and banana-scented fruit can be seen up close.

Size, growth and what to expect

No source rates its growth, so our growth estimator treats it as a slow grower, like our dwarf pawpaw, about a foot a year. It is a long-lived shrub up to 10 feet tall, now and then 15, with one to several arching stems from a deep taproot. After a fire it sprouts back quickly from the root.

Nodding flowers about an inch across open from late March through July. They open cream and turn dark maroon, and they have a fetid smell. Oblong, lumpy, greenish-yellow fruits 2 to 5 inches long ripen in late summer and smell of bananas. People do not eat them, but raccoons, gopher tortoises and mice do.

It grows only in sand pine scrub on old dunes in Martin and Palm Beach Counties, Florida. Fire or cutting that opens the scrub brings more flowers and fruit.

How to grow Four-petal Pawpaw

Four-petal pawpaw needs full sun or light shade and deep, dry sand that drains fast. It flowers and fruits best in the open, and in shade it grows taller but seldom flowers. Set plants 6 feet apart, and keep each one 3 feet from a wall. It is small enough to grow within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship potted. The long taproot makes moving it hard, so plant from the pot with the root ball whole, in a hole wider than the pot and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stems. Sow the seed as soon as the fruit ripens, three quarters of an inch deep, and never let it dry. About half of fresh seed sprouts, often within weeks, but seed kept longer than two weeks will not sprout.

Water weekly through the first two summers. Old plants flower less, so cut them back now and then, since they sprout again readily from the root.

Each flower is female before it turns male, so a lone plant sets little fruit, and fruit needs plants from different seed growing near each other. Beetles are its main pollinators. Zebra swallowtail caterpillars and the larvae of a pyramid moth feed on the leaves and flowers. Saplings and seed are shipped only in state and otherwise pickup only.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

Sources (9)