Papaya (Carica papaya)

Position papaya plants in the systematics of plants classified as follows:

• Kingdom: Plantae
• Division: Spermatophyta
• Sub divisio: Angiospermae
• Class: Dicotylidonae
• Order: Caricalis
• Family: Caricaceae
• Species: Carica papaya L (Soranta, 2009)

Papaya (Carica papaya) is a plant that originated from southern Mexico and northern parts of South America. Papaya is the only plant that had genus Carica. This name papaya in Indonesian Papaja taken from the Dutch language. In the Java language called pawpaw and in Sundanese called papaya. Papaya is a plant that resembles wet trunked upright and palms, white flowers and fruit that is ripe reddish yellow and tastes like melon. 

Papaya tree height can reach 8 to 20 meters with strong roots. The leaves are shaped like human hands. If the leaves are folded in half exactly in the middle, you will see that the leaves are symmetrical. The cavity in the star-shaped fruit when the fruit dipoting transverse cross-section. This plant is also cultivated in gardens for his extensive fresh and nutritious. In addition to the fruit used, this plant also used the leaves as a vegetable and meat tenderizer. Young leaves eaten as a salad (after dilayukan with hot water) or used as a wrapping kit. By the Manado, flowers diurap into a vegetable commonly eaten (Ahira, 2010).
Papaya leaves has long been known for pain medications malaria, increase appetite and improve digestion. In addition, roots and seeds are used for de-worming. Mothers who are pregnant and younger are not encouraged to eat seeds and fruit papaya because it can cause miscarriage (Gunawan, 1999).

Chemical content of leaves of papaya (Carica papaya L) is the enzyme papain, carpaine alkaloids, pseudo-carpaine, glikosid, karposid and saponins, sucrose, dextrose, and levulose. Alkaloids carpaine have effects such as digitalis (Soranta, 2009).
Carica papaya also contains various substances, among others:
• Vitamin A SI 18250
• Vitamin B1 0,15 mg
• Vitamin C 140 mg
• Calories 79 cal
• Protein 8.0 grams
• Fat 2 g
• Hydrate Arang 11.9 grams
• Calcium 353 mg
• Phosphorus 63 mg
• Iron 0.8 mg
• Water 75.4 grams
The content carposide the medicinal properties of papaya leaf worm. Besides the leaves, roots and sap also contains substances papayotin, karpain, kautsyuk, karposit and vitamins (Ahira, 2010).

Categories: Plants