Vasconcellea pubescensA.DC.

mountain papaya

WFO wfo-0000421667 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Vasconcellea pubescens, photographed by Juan Carlos Caicedo Hernández
fig. a Juan Carlos Caicedo Hernández, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-10-26 / obs. 165899649
Vasconcellea pubescens, photographed by Luisa Matiz
fig. b Luisa Matiz, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 117432560
Vasconcellea pubescens, photographed by Elliot Kulakow
fig. c Elliot Kulakow, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 108395531
Vasconcellea pubescens, photographed by Brett Sandford
fig. d Brett Sandford, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 30805121
Vasconcellea pubescens, photographed by GERMAN LEONEL SARMIENTO CRUZ
fig. e GERMAN LEONEL SARMIENTO CRUZ, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 113019929
Vasconcellea pubescens, photographed by Colin Meurk
fig. f Colin Meurk, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 1858985
Vasconcellea pubescens, photographed by Colin Meurk
fig. g Colin Meurk, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 1858952
Vasconcellea pubescens, photographed by Jenny Christianson
fig. h Jenny Christianson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 30653297

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 6 botanical countries

Regions where Vasconcellea pubescens is native: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panamá, Peru, Venezuela BoliviaColombiaEcuadorPanamáPeruVenezuela
Native distribution of Vasconcellea pubescens, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Bolivia BOL SOUTHERN AMERICA
Colombia CLM
Ecuador ECU
Panamá PAN
Peru PER
Venezuela VEN

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Also published as 12 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Carica candamarcensis Hook.f.
  • Carica cestriflora Solms
  • Carica chiriquensis Woodson
  • Carica cundinamarcensis Linden
  • Carica pubescens Lenné & K.Koch
  • Carica pubescens Solms
  • Papaya cestriflora (A.DC.) Kuntze
  • Papaya cundinamarcencis (Linden) Kuntze
  • Papaya cundinamarcensis (Linden) Kuntze
  • Papaya pubescens (Lenné & K.Koch) Kuntze
  • Vasconcellea cestriflora A.DC.
  • Vasconcellea cundinamarcensis V.M.Badillo

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol CAPU39. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.