80 



8ILVA OF NORTE AMERICA. morace^ 



kes two to two and a half inches long 



and very lustrous, inclosing the inner scales, which are scarious, coated with pale hairs, oblong-lanceolate, 

 rounded or acute at the apex, and one half to two thirds of an inch long at maturity. The leaves are 

 ovate, oblong-ovate, or semiorbicular, abruptly contracted into long broad points or acute at the apex, 

 more or less deeply cordate or occasionally truncate at the base, coarsely and occasionally doubly serrate 

 with incurved teeth ending in minute callous tips, and sometimes, especially on vigorous young shoots, 

 three-lobed by broad deep oblique rounded lateral sinuses, entire in the bottom, the lower lobes being 

 again sometimes slightly lobed ; when they unfold they are yellow-green, slightly pilose on the upper 

 surface, and coated on the lower surface and on the petioles with thick white tomentum, which soon 

 begins to disappear, and at maturity they are thin and membranaceous, dark bluish green, glabrous, 

 smooth or scabrate above, and pale and more or less pubescent below with short white hairs, which are 

 thickest on the narrow orange-colored ribs and primary veins arcuate and united near the margins, and 

 connected by reticulate veinlets, or sometimes in Louisiana and Texas the lower surface is covered with 

 a thick coat of white tomentum ; they are three to five inches long, two and one half to four inches 

 broad, and are borne on stout terete petioles three quarters of an inch to an inch and one quarter in 

 length. The stipules are lanceolate, acute, abruptly enlarged and thickened at the base, sometimes 

 tinged with red above the middle, coated with long white hairs, and often an inch long. The leaves 

 turn bright yellow, and fall early in the autumn. The flowers appear with the unfolding of the leaves 

 from the middle of March in Texas to the middle of June in western New York ; the males are borne 



on stout light green peduncles covered with pale 

 hairs, and produced in the axils of the inner bud-scales or of the first leaves, and the females, with 

 which a few male flowers are sometimes mixed, in oblong densely flowered spikes an inch long on short 

 hairy peduncles in the axils of later leaves. The bud of the staminate flower is conspicuously four- 

 lobed, depressed at the apex, green below and dark red above the middle, covered with pale hairs, and 

 gradually narrowed into a short hairy pedicel ; after anthesis the calyx is divided nearly to the base into 

 four oblong concave lobes rounded at the apex, slightly thickened on the back, and hirsute on the outer 

 surface. The filaments are inserted under the margin of the slender minute pointed rudimentary ovary, 

 and are slightly flattened, narrowed from the base to the apex, abruptly infolded above the middle in 

 the bud and exserted after anthesis ; the anthers are bright green, with conspicuous bright green 

 orbicular connectives. The bud of the pistillate flower is obovate, four-lobed, pilose, slightly depressed 

 and hirsute at the apex, bright green below and dark red above the middle, and sessile on the stout 

 hairy rachis; after anthesis the calyx is divided nearly to the base into four thick concave lobes, 

 rounded at the apex, and rounded or slightly angled on the back, the two outer lobes being nearly twice 

 as wide as the others ; it is as long as the ovary, which it closely invests, and which is ovate, flattened, 

 glabrous, light green and lustrous, and crowned with a short style, divided into two long white 

 stigmatic lobes. The compound fruit, which at first is bright red when it is fuUy grown, ripens from 

 May to July ; it is an inch to an inch and a quarter long, dark purple or nearly black, and sweet and 

 juicy when fully ripe ; the drupes are about one thirty-second of an inch in length, with a thin fleshy 

 outer coat and a light brown nutlet. The seed is ovate, acute, and covered with a thin membranaceous 

 light brown coat. 



Morus rubra is distributed from western Massachusetts and Long Island, New York, to southern 

 Ontario ^ and central Michigan, westward to southeastern Nebraska ^ and eastern Kansas, and southward 

 to the shores of Bay Biscayne and Cape Romano in Florida and the valley of the Colorado River in 

 Texas. An inhabitant of the rich soil of intervale lands and low hills, Morus rubra is most abundant, 

 and attains its largest size in the basin of the lower Ohio River and on the foothills of the southern 

 Appalachian Mountains. 



The wood of Morus rubra is light, soft, not strong, rather tough, coarse-grained, and very durable 

 when placed in contact with the soil ; it contains may thin meduUary rays and broad bands of large 



1 Macoun, Cat. Can. PL i. 430. 



Nebraska 



