MY SWEET FIRST-GRADE granddaughter, Isla, sometimes quietly looks over my shoulder and reads whatever I am reading, be it in a book or on a screen. She sounds out an unfamiliar spelling in a way that would make her teachers proud, but still many words make no sense to her. Her most recent query of me: “Papa, what’s a Papa-ya?” Well, I gave her the short answer and promised that I would soon buy a small “pa•pa•ya” for the two of us to cut up and share together.
The papaya is my latest plant love interest, which is why the word was on my computer screen. I serially flirt with various plants. Last winter in Sarasota my eye wandered to observe how attractive can be with its deep green, foot-wide (or wider), lobed palmate leaves. (The word
