Pawpaw trees in the forest understory NPS. With leaves and branches that deer avoid, and fruit that is loved by all, the pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is a fascinating native tree. It’s the only local member of a large, mainly-tropical plant family (Annonaceae), and produces the largest edible fruit native to North America. Despite being a small, understory tree, unlikely to ever grow into the forest canopy, pawpaw is the most frequently observed sapling in forest monitoring plots tracked by the National Capital Region Network Inventory & Monitoring program (NCRN I&M) . What do we know about the ecology of pawpaw in our region, and what could its dominance mean for our future forests?