Feral Papaya Plants in Florida—A Resource for Breeding New Cultivars

Papaya is native to southern Mexico and Central America. It was likely introduced to Florida by Native Americans, from the Calusa tribe through their contact with indigenous Caribbean people no later than 300 A.D. Some of the evidence for this introduction comes from seeds found in the Native American mounds of the Pineland Site Complex in Pine Island, Florida. While papaya did not originate in Florida, it is considered naturalized. We have surveyed and sampled several feral papaya plants from different geographical areas of south Florida. Feral papayas may possess unique traits that are absent in commercial papaya cultivars and potentially useful for the genetic improvement of papaya germplasm.