DICOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS 61 



20. MORACE^. Mulberry Family. 



Trees, shrubs, or herbs, usually with milky juice, alternate 

 leaves, large deciduous stipules and small monoecious or dioe- 

 cious flowers crowded in spikes, heads or racemes, or enclosed 

 in a fleshy receptacle. Staminate flowers with a 3-4-lobed 

 calyx, stamens 3-4, inserted on the base of the calyx, fila- 

 ments usually inflexed in the bud, straightening at maturity. 

 Pistillate flowers 3-5-sepalous ; ovary 1-2-celled, 1-2-ovuled ; 

 styles 2, receptacle and perianth often fleshy at maturity.* 



I. MORUS, Tourn. 



Trees or shrubs with milky juice, rounded leaves, and 

 monoecious flowers in axillary spikes. Staminate flowers 

 with a 4-parted perianth, and 4 stamens inflexed in the bud. 

 Pistillate flowers with a 4-parted perianth which becomes 

 fleshy in the multiple fruit, the pulpy part of which consists 

 of the thickened calyx, bracts and so on of many flowers ; 

 ovary sessile, stigmas 2, linear, spreading ; the fleshy perianth 

 enclosing the ovary at maturity."* 



1. M. rubra, L. Red Mulberry. A small tree. Leaves cor- 

 date-ovate, often 3-5-lobed on vigorous shoots, taper-pointed at the 

 apex, serrate, rough above, white, densely woolly beneath. Matiu*e 

 fruiting spikes oblong, drooping, dark red or purple, edible. On rich 

 soil. Wood very durable, bearing exj^osure to the weather. 



2. M. alba, L. White Mulberry. A small tree. Leaves 

 ovate, heart-shaped, acute at the apex, rounded and often oblique at 

 the base, serrate or sometimes lobed. Smooth and shining on both 

 sides. Mature fruit light red or white. Introduced and common 

 about old dwellings.* 



II. MACLURA, Nutt. 



A small tree with milky juice. Leaves alternate, petioled, 

 spines axillary. Flowers dioecious. Staminate flowers in 

 short axillary racemes ; calyx 4-parted ; stamens 4, inflexed 

 in the bud. Pistillate flowers in axillary, peduncled, capitate 

 clusters ; calyx 4-parted, ovary sessile, style long ; calyces 

 becoming thickened and fleshy in fruit and aggregated into a 

 large, dense, globular head.* 



