The closest relatives of papaya are four species from Mexico and Guatemala

For many decades, researchers thought the closest relatives of papaya were certain trees from the Andes, the so-called highland papayas. A study employing DNA sequences from all species of the papaya family instead revealed that the closest relatives of papaya are three herbaceous species and a small tree with stinging hairs occurring from Mexico to Guatemala and El Salvador. The stingy-haired tree in fact is only known from cloud forests in the Sierra de Juarez in Oaxaca, southern Mexico.

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