Pawpaw also recognized as a prairie banana, Kentucky banana, or Ozark banana, is a genus of eight or nine class of small trees with large leaves and  fruit, native to southeastern North America. The genus includes the main edible fruit native to North America. They are understorey trees of yawning  fertile bottomland soils. The name, also spelled paw paw, paw-paw, and papaw, most likely derives from the Spanish papaya, perhaps due to the  superficial resemblance of their fruit. Pawpaw is in the same family Annunciate as the custard-apple, soursop, sweetsop, and cherimoya, and it is the only  associate of that family not confined to the tropics.

The pawpaws are undergrowth or small trees, reaching heights of 2 to 12 m tall. The leaves are alternate, easy ovate, entire, 20 to 35 cm long and 10 to  15 cm broad. The northern, cold tolerant common pawpaw is deciduous, while the southern varieties are often evergreen. The fetid flowers are shaped singly or in clusters of up to eight together; they are large, 4 to 6 cm across, ideal, with six sepals and petals. The petal color varies from white to purple or red-brown. Pollinated by scavenging carrion flies and beetles, the flowers produce a weak scent which attracts few pollinators, thus limiting fruit  construction. Larger growers sometimes locate rotting meat near the trees at bloom time to increase the number of blowflies. Asimina triloba is the single larval host of the Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly.