4D 
8 MOKUS RUBRA. 
inesque, which are generally treated by him as species ; but. from observations of 
our own, as well as the opinion of others, we regard them only as varieties: 
1. M. r. pallida. Pale-fruited Red-fruited Midberry; with fruit of a pale-red 
colour. 
2. M. r. heterophylla. Various-leaved Red-fruited Mulberry, with all the 
leaves unlike. 
3. M. r. riparia. River-bank-inhabiting Red-fruited Mulberry ; Water Mul- 
berry, Wild Black Midberry, of the Pennsylvanians. This variety differs from 
the species in having longer petioles, ovate, deeply cordate leaves, which are 
seldom laterally lobed, quite smooth, and thin, crenate, serrate, acute, but neither 
acuminate nor oblique at the base. It forms a handsome tree, growing on the 
banks of the Susquehannah, in the Alleghany Mountains. The leaves are from 
three to five inches long; and the fruit is of a dark-red. 
4. M. r. canadensis. Canadian Red-fruited Mulberry ; called Rock Mulberry, 
when growing on rocky steeps. The leaves of this variety are ovate, oblique, 
rounded at the base, but not cordate, serrate, acuminate, and smooth. It is a 
native of Canada, the northern parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New 
York, and the Alleghany Mountains. 
5. M. r. parvifolia. Small-leaved Red-fruited Midberry ; called Indian Mul- 
berry, by the inhabitants of the Alleghanies. The leaves of this variety are from 
one to two inches long, are smooth, ovate, acute or obtuse, not lobed, equally 
sub-crenate, truncate at the base, often oblique, and supported by long, slender 
petioles. The fruit is very small, oblong-ovate, of a very pale-red colour, and 
sweet taste. It is a native of the Alleghany and Apalachian Mountains, and is 
said to have been cultivated by the Indians. 
Geography and History. The Morus rubra is found near the northern extrem- 
ity of Lake Champlain, and at the head of Lake Winnipisiogee, which may be 
assumed as the northern limits of this tree. As a temperate climate is favourable 
to its increase, as we progress southward it becomes more multiplied; but along 
the Atlantic, it is proportionably less common than many other trees which do not 
form the mass of the forests. In the lower parts of the southern states, it is much 
less frequently seen, than at a distance from the ocean, where the soil and vege- 
table productions wear a different character. It is most frequently met with in 
Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and particularly abounds 
on the banks of the Wabash, the Illinois, and the Missouri, which is attributable 
to the superior fertility of the soil. 
This species was cultivated in Britain, according to Parkinson, early in the 
XVIIth century. He says, in his " Paradisus," " it grows quickly with us to a 
large tree," and that " the fruit is long, red, and pleasantly acid." Miller men- 
tions a tree of this species in the garden at Fulham Palace, which, in 1731, had 
been there many years without producing any fruit; but which, at some seasons, 
bore a great number of catkins, much like those of the hazel-nut ; which caused 
Ray to give it the name of Corylus. Almost the only plants of the Morus rubra, 
of much magnitude, in the environs of London, are those mentioned by Mr. Lou- 
don, as growing in the garden of the Horticultural Society, and in the arboretum 
of Messrs. Loddiges, at Hackney. In 1836, these trees were from eight to six- 
teen feet high. 
In France, in the Jardin des Plantes, at Paris, there is a tree of this species, 
which, in fifty years after planting, had attained the height of forty-five feet, 
with a trunk a foot and a half in diameter, and an ambitus or spread of branches 
of thirty-eight feet. 
In Italy, at Monza, there is a Morus rubra, which, in sixty years after plant- 
ing, had attained the height of twenty-six feet, with a trunk two feet in diame- 
ter, and an ambitus of thirty feet. 
