Papaya Trees are not really trees and that is why they grow so fast

Nobody even realized the papaya tree in our backyard was sprouted from the ground to above our kitchen window until after it had been around for just one rainy season. That’s not an exaggeration. That thing was there before anyone noticed it. How did it get there? We didn’t plant it and didn't give it any of our attention, it just grew there until one day we looked up and saw it.

The papaya tree has a trunk that you can squeeze and it gives a little bit, so it’s kind of soft inside, it’s not made out of normal thick tree wood. It doesn’t look like a tree to me, but rather a stout, stocky stalk of something that is actually not a tree at all because of its size and height, it’s considered a large herb because it has the same culinary classification as those little houseplants you have in your window.

Banana plants are similar to the papaya, not a tree either. The portion of the banana plant that appears like the trunk is actually just leaves wrapped up tightly about one another.

You can cut into it with a machete relatively easy. It’s unusual how this massive plant is merely a thick grouping of leaves that look as though they are an actual tree.

The reason the papaya grows so fast is because it’s not using its resources to build wood, it’s basically taking shortcuts so to speak, to produce fruit at a faster rate than it would if it were limited to the amount of resource usage it uses in order to produce long lived trees. The papaya does not have the structural ability to withstand high winds like iroko.

I have seen papayas at the edge of tree lines against fences all the time appear as though they were leaning because of their fast growth, no one intentionally planted them, they simply sprouted there by not using very much energy and utilizing available resources.

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