The real papaya is a plant belonging to the genus Chaenomeles of Rosaceae, which is native to the temperate zone of China. There are many varieties of Chaenomeles, Malus pedunculata and so on, among which the most famous one is the Malus pedunculata of Xuancheng, also known as wrinkled papaya or flowering papaya.

Papaya in Rosaceae is a kind of medicinal papaya, and its fruit is mainly used as Chinese herbal medicine, so it is not suitable for fresh eating. Papaya in Rosaceae has good ornamental value because of its beautiful and attractive colors. The papaya mentioned in our ancient poems refers to this kind of medicinal papaya.

Edible papaya

Papaya, which can be eaten as fresh fruit, is the fruit of Papaya, a family of Papaya. It originated in South Asia and was introduced to China only in the late Ming Dynasty. This fruit looks very similar to the local papaya in China, so it is called "papaya". The fruit of papaya is mainly used as fruit for people to eat fresh or cooked food, and has no ornamental value.

Chinese medicinal papaya rarely appears in the market, but papaya as a fruit often appears in front of people. For a long time, people only know that papaya is an edible fruit, but they don't know that there is a variety of medicinal papaya, so they simply call papaya for short.

The ripe papaya is one of the four famous fruits in Lingnan, with rich aroma, sweet and delicious flesh, and has the accolades of "the fruit with a hundred benefits", "the king of fruit" and "the melon with a long life".