230 OTJE COMMON FRUITS. 



fruit ; whereas in the mulberry numerous flowers cohere 

 to make one fruit ; yet, instead of its divisions being more 

 distinct, as might have been supposed, their union is, on 

 the contrary, so complete that, though dividing markings 

 appear upon the surface, they do not extend much deeper, 

 and the parts therefore are not separable. The real class- 

 mate of the mulberry is the pine-apple, which is formed 

 in a similar way by numerous succulent calices cohering 

 into a single fleshy mass, and different as are these two 

 fruits in size, colour, and mode of vegetation, traces of 

 their one great point of affinity may soon be detected on 

 comparing their external surfaces, marked as both are 

 with such well-defined but non-separating divisions. 



The mulberry when first formed is green ; it then be- 

 comes red, and finally black, whence the generic name 

 Morus * (from inauros, " dark"), is derived ; a fact rather 

 opposed to the romantic Ovidian theory of all mulberries 

 having been white until after the death of Pyramus and 

 Thisbe ; and involving, too, a little absurdity in the sur- 

 names by which the species are distinguished, that of 

 nigra, affixed to the black-fruited kind, meaning the same 

 thing, and being therefore but a pleonasm, while alba or 

 white, the special title of the silk-worm-feeding sort, 

 though justified by its snowy fruit, is as evidently a para- 

 dox. When fully ripe, so readily does the inky juice of 

 the Black Mulberry burst through its tender skin that 

 it can scarcely be touched without leaving a sable stain 

 on the fingers ; a circumstance which it appears is some- 

 times rather prejudicial to its position in society, a French 

 writer remarking concerning the fruit that "though many 

 people are very fond of them, they are more often con- 

 sumed in the country than at city repasts, where elegance 

 ought to exclude them, as, if not eaten with great care, 

 they stain the clothes." When they are partaken of in 

 Prance, they are served at the beginning of the meal, in- 

 stead of forming part of the dessert. 



* Tt is believed that this word has itself furnished an etymology, the 

 peninsula of the Morea being, it is said, so called on account of its shape 

 resembling that of a mulberry-leaf, 



