the papaw; A genus of the decandra order, belonging to the diocia class of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the 38th order, Tricocce. The calyx of the male almost none; the corolla is quinquefid and funnel-shaped; the filaments in the tube of the corolla, a longer and shorter one alternately. The calyx of the female quinquedentated; the corolla is pentapetalous, with five stigmas; the fruit an unicellular and polypernous berry.

Species. 1. The papaya rises with a thick, soft, hermaphrodite stem, to the height of 18 or 20 feet, naked till within two or three feet of the top. The leaves come out on every side, upon very long footstalks. Those which are situated undermost are almost horizontal, but those on the top are erect; these leaves in full grown plants are very large, and divided into many lobes deeply sinuated. The stems of the plant, and also the footstalks of the leaves, are hollow. The flowers of the male plant are produced from between the leaves on the upper part of the plant. They have footstalks near two feet long; at the end of which the flowers stand in loose clusters, each having a separate short footstalk; these are of a pure white, and have an agreeable odour. The flowers of the female papaya also come out from between the leaves towards the upper part of the plant, upon very short footstalks, fitting close to the stem: they are large, and bell-shaped, composed of six petals, and are commonly yellow; when these fall away, the germen swells to a large fleshy fruit, of the size of a small melon. These fruits are of different forms: some angular, and compressed at both ends; others oval, or globular; and some pyramidal. The fruit, and all the other parts of the tree abound with a milky acid juice, which is applied for killing of ring-worms. When the roundish fruit are nearly ripe, the inhabitants of India boil and eat them with their meat as we do turnips. They have somewhat the flavour of a pompion. Previous to boiling they soak them for some time in salt water, to extract the corrosive juice; unless the meat they are to be boiled with should be very salt and old, and then this juice being in them will make it as tender as a chicken. But they mostly pickle the long fruit, and thus they make no bad succedaneum for mango. The buds of the female flowers are gathered, and made into a sweet-meat; and the inhabitants are such good managers of the produce of this tree, that they boil the shells of the ripe fruit into a repast, and the insides are eaten with sugar in the manner of melons.—The stem being hollow, has given birth to a proverb in the West-India islands; where, in speaking of a dissembling person, they say he is as hollow as a popo.

2. The propofora, differs from the other in having a branching stalk, the lobes of the leaves entire, the flower of a rose colour, and the fruit shaped like a pear, and of a sweeter flavour than the papaya.

Culture, &c. These plants being natives of hot countries, cannot be preferred in Britain unless constantly kept in a warm stove, which should be of a proper height to contain them. They are easily propagated by seeds, which are annually brought in plenty from the West Indies, though the seeds of the European plants ripen well. The seeds should be sown in a hotbed early in the spring: when the plants are near two inches high, they should be removed into separate small pots, and each plunged into a hot-bed of tanners bark, carefully shading them from the sun till they have taken root; after which, they are to be treated in the same manner as other tender exotics. When they are removed into other pots, care must be taken as much as possible to preserve the ball of earth about them, because wherever their roots are laid bare they seldom survive. When they are grown to a large size, they make a noble appearance with their strong upright stems, garnished on every side near the top with large thinning leaves, spreading out near three feet all round the stem: the flowers of the male forthcoming out in clusters on every side, and the fruit of the female Carica growing round the stalks between the leaves, are so different from any thing of European production, as well to intitle these plants to a place in the gardens of the curious. The fruit of the first species is by the inhabitants of the Caribbee islands eaten with pepper and sugar as melons, but is much inferior to a melon in its native country; but those which have ripened in Britain were detectable: the only use to which Mr Miller says he has known them put was, when they were about half grown, to soak them in salt water to get out the acrid juice, and then pickle them for orange, to which they are a good substitute.