100 



MORACEAE. 



Family 2. MORACEAE Lindl. 



Mulberry Family. 



Trees, shrubs or herbs, mostly with milky sap, petioled stipulate leaves, 

 and small monoecious or dioecious axillary clustered flowers, or the pistillate 

 flowers solitary in some g-enera. Calyx mostly 4-6-parted. Petals none. 

 Staminate flowers panicled, spicate or capitate, the stamens as many as the 

 calyx-segments. Pistillate flowers capitate, spicate or eymose. Ovary 

 superior, 1-celled in our genera. Ovule solitary, pendulous, anatropous. 

 Styles 1 or 2. About 55 genera and 925 species, widely distributed. 



Flowers in spike-like clusters ; fruit a syncarp. 

 Flowers in a hollow receptacle ; fruit a syconium. 



1. Morus. 



2. Ficus. 



1. MORUS [Tourn.] L. 

 Trees or shrubs, with milkj sap, alternate dentate and often lobed, 3- 

 nerved leaves, fugacious stipules, the pistillate spikes ripening into a succulent 

 aggregate fruit. Staminate flowers with a 4-parted perianth, its segments' 

 somewhat imbricated, and 4 stamens, the filaments inflexed in the bud, 

 straightening and exserted in anthesis. Pistillate flowers with a 4-parted per- 

 sistent perianth, which becomes fleshy in fruit, a sessile ovary, and 2 linear 

 stigmas. Fruiting perianth enclosing the ovary, the exocarp succulent, the 

 endocarp crustaceous. [Ancient name of the mulberry.] About 10 species, of 

 the northern hemisphere. Type species: Morus nigra L. 



Mature leaves pubescent beneath ; fruit purple. 1. M. rubra. 



Mature leaves glabrous ; fruit black. 2. AI. nigra. 



1. Morus rubra L. Red 



Mulberry. (Fig. 116.) A 

 tree, 25° high or more, the bark 

 brown and rough. Leaves ovate 

 or nearly orbicular, scabrous 

 above, pubescent beneath, or 

 when young almost tomentose, 

 acuminate at the apex, rounded, 

 truncate or cordate at the base, 

 serrate-dentate or 3-7-lobed, 3'- 

 8' long; staminate spikes droop- 

 ing; pistillate spikes spread- 

 ing or pendulous in fruit, 1'- 

 lY long, 4"-5" in diameter, 

 about 1' long, slender-peduncled, 

 dark purple-red or nearly black, 

 delicious. 



Rocky woodlands, Walsing- 

 ham, now rare, or perhaps ex- 

 terminated. Introduced. Eastern 

 United States. Flowers in spring. 

 Occasionally planted for its fine 

 fruit. 



Morus alba L., White Mulberry, of Europe and Asia, and naturalized in 

 the United States, is occasionally planted. It is a tree with thin broadly ovate, 

 pointed, coarsely toothed leaves 3'-8' long, glabrous, except for some hairs in the 

 axils of the veins beneath, often variously lobed, the white fruit A'-|' long. 



