MORACEiE. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



15 



MORUS. 



Flowers monoecious or dioecious ; calyx 4-parted, the divisions imbricated in aesti- 

 vation ; corolla ; stamens 4, incurved in the bud ; disk ; ovary superior, 1-celled ; 

 ovule solitary, suspended. Fruit drupaceous, inclosed in the thickened succulent calyx. 

 Leaves alternate, stipulate, deciduous. 



Morus, Linnseus, Ge7i. 283 (1737). — Adanson, Fam. PL ii. Bentham & Hooker, Gen. iii. 364. — Engler, Engler & 



377. — A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. 402. — Endlicher, Gen. Prantl Pflanzenfam. iii. pt. i. 72. 



278. — Meisner, Gen. 351. — Baillon, Hist. PL vi. 190. — Morophorum, Necker, Elem. Bot. iii. 255 (1790). 



Trees or shrubs, with thick milky juice^ slender terete unarmed branches, scaly bark, and fibrous 

 roots. Buds ^ covered with ovate scales closely imbricated in two ranks, increasing in size from without 

 inward, the inner accrescent, caducous, marking in falling the base of the branch with narrow ring-like 

 scars. Leaves condupHcate in the bud, alternate, serrate, entire or three-lobed, three to five-nerved at 

 the base, petiolate, membranaceous or subcoriaceous, deciduous ; stipules inclosing their leaf in the bud, 

 lateral, lanceolate, acute, caducous. Flowers minute, vernal, in pedunculate clusters from the axils of the 

 caducous bud-scales, or of the lower leaves of the year ; the males short-pedicellate, in elongated cylin- 

 drical spikes ; the females sessile, in short oblong or subglobose, or rarely elongated densely flowered 

 spikes ; the males and females on different branches of the same individual or on different individuals, 

 or the two sexes rarely mixed in the same inflorescence. Calyx of the sterile flower deeply divided into 

 four equal ovate rounded lobes. Stamens four, inserted opposite the lobes of the calyx under the minute 

 rudimentary ovary ; filaments filiform, incurved in the bud, in anthesis straightening elastically, exserted ; 

 anthers attached on the back below the middle, erect, two-celled, the cells reniform, attached laterally 

 to the orbicular connective, opening longitudinally. Calyx of the pistillate flower four-parted, the lobes 

 ovate or obovate, thickened, often unequal, the two outer broader than the others, persistent, becoming 

 succulent, and inclosing the fruit. Ovary ovoid or subglobose, sessile, included in the calyx, one-celled, 

 crowned with a central style divided nearly to the base into two equal spreading filiform or subulate 

 villous stigmatic branches; ovule solitary, suspended from the apex of the cell, campylotropous ; 

 micropyle superior. Drupes ovate or obovate, crowned with the remnants of the styles, inclosed in 

 the succulent thickened colored perianths and more or less united into an edible juicy syncarp; exocarp 

 subsucculent, thin ; endocarp thin or thick, crustaceous.^ Seed oblong, pendulous ; testa thin, membra- 

 naceous y hilum minute, apical. Embryo incurved in thick fleshy albumen ; cotyledons oblong, equal ; 

 radicle ascending, incumbent. 



Morus, of which six or seven species can be distinguished, is confined to eastern temperate North 

 America, where two species occur, the elevated regions of Mexico, Central America and western South 

 America, western Asia, India, China, Japan, and the high mountains of the Indian Archipelago. The 



The North American, Persian, Chinese, and Japanese species Cur. xxii 



XX 



terminal 



147, f. 4). 



and falling oflf during the summer, leaving a scar close to the upper ^ Baillon, Adansonia^ i. 214, t. 8, f. 1-12. 



axillary bud, which prolongs the branch (Henry, Nov, Act. Nat. 



