#fayette county

Laurel Caverns State Park (brand new! Opened on April 6!)

Speaking of pawpaw (Asimina triloba), Blake and I made a visit to Friendship Hill National Historic Site earlier this morning, where the only temperate member of the soursop family (Annonaceae) grows in abundance in the floodplain forest along the Monongahela River. Pawpaw is an attractive understory tree with lush-green, broadly-obovate foliage reminiscent of that of yellow buckeye; it adds an almost tropical look and feel to a riparian habitat. As an interesting aside, the larvae of the zebra swallowtail butterfly feed on the young leaves of pawpaw, whose naturally-occurring insecticidal chemicals are passed on in trace amounts through adulthood and makes the butterfly unpalatable to would-be predators.