Kathy Reid, age 12, of High Point, North Carolina, for her question:

What Grows in a pawpaw patch?

Corn grows in the corn patch and in the cabbage patch grow cabbages. So you would expect to find pawpaws growing in a pawpaw patch. However, pawpaw is less well known than corn and cabbages. It is a native North American tree that grows 10 to 40 feet tall. Its leaves may be six inches wide and 12 inches long, and its branches spread out in a shady umbrella. The pawpaw tree grows wild through all our southern states and sometimes we find it as far north as Nebraska. In summer the leafy boughs produce flowers of bright or brownish red. In fall, they produce edible fruit that looks some¬what like fat, green bananas two to five inches long.

Actually there are two types of pawpaw trees. One bears fruit stuffed with soft, custardy pulp of bright orange color. This pulp tastes a little like bananas and children who live in pawpaw country love to eat it. The other type of pawpaw tree has fruit stuffed with white or pasty yellow pulp. It may be quite tasteless or it may have a bitter, unpleasant flavor. Nobody likes it. The fruit growing in your pawpaw patch may be delicious or downright distasteful.