Keystone Trails Association Webinar-“America’s Forgotten Fruit”: The pawpaw by Horn Farm Center 

As late summer transitions to fall, woodland trails across southern Pennsylvania fill with a bright, tangy, and vaguely tropical aroma. Following their nose, a hiker can readily spot the source: olive-green, first-sized fruits abounding, fermenting in the leaf litter. Such things might seem out of place in a temperate forest ecosystem, but in fact, this is the fleeting season of the pawpaw (Asimina triloba)–the largest edible fruit indigenous to North America.

Like many of the “wild” foods that characterize our landscapes, the pawpaw has only recently experienced renewed attention after decades in the shadows. But this short-lived, delectable fruit has a rich and rooted history in eastern North America, weaving its way through ecologies and cultures from Georgia through Pennsylvania since the last ice age.  

Join Andrew Leahy from the Horn Farm Center in York, PA, as we remember “America’s forgotten fruit,” digging into the natural history, ethnobotany, foraging, and future of the pawpaw. We’ll explore questions like: how did a tropical fruit get here? Why did it recede from the popular imagination (and why is it making a comeback)? What did George Washington have to say about it? And why on earth can’t you find it in the grocery store?

Overall, we’ll demonstrate how the pawpaw is so much more than a tasty trailside treat: inviting us into a deeper understanding of the ecology, history, and stories of the land we call home. 

Find more information and register HERE.