sturtevant's notes on edible plants 369 



Moronobea grandiflora Choizy. Guttiferae. 



A tall tree of Brazil. Arruda ' says the fruit is nearly of the size of an orange but is 

 oval and contains 23 stones covered with a white pulp of a pleasant taste, being sweet 

 and somewhat acid. It is called bacuri. 



Moms alba Linn. Urticaceae. white mulberry. 



A tree of China and Japan but naturalized in Eiu'ope, Asia and America. It is com- 

 monly supposed, says Thompson,^ that cuttings of the white mulberry were first brought 

 into Tuscany from the Levant in 1434 and in the course of the century this species had 

 almost entirely superceded M. nigra for the feeding of silk worms in Italy. The variety 

 multicaulis was brought from Manila to Senegal, and some years afterwards to Europe, 

 and was described by Kenrick,' 1835, preceding which date it had reached America. 

 In 1773 or 1774, Wm. Bartram * noticed large plantations of M. alba grafted on M. rubra 

 near Charleston, S. C, for the purpose of feeding silk worms, but it is probable that its 

 first introduction was coeval with the interest in silk culture before 1660. The mulberry 

 trees planted in Virginia in 1623 by order of the Colonial Assembly were probably of this 

 species. There are many varieties of M. alba, and in India it is cultivated for its fruit, 

 of which some kinds are sweet, some acid, and of all shades of color from white to a deep 

 blackish-purple. In Kashmir and Afghanistan, the fruit furnishes a considerable portion 

 of the food of the inhabitants in autimm and much of it is dried and preserved.^ In Kabul, 

 there is a white, seedless variety called shah-toot, or royal mulberry. The fruits are from 

 two to two and one-half inches long and of the thickness of the small finger, very sweet, 

 and the tree is inexhaustibly prolific. In its season it forms the chief food of the 

 poor.* 



M. ceWdifolia H. B. & K. 



Peru to Mexico. The tree bears an edible fruit.' 



M. indica Linn, aino mulberry. 



Tropical Asia. The aino mtol berry is cultivated in Bengal for feeding silk worms,* 

 and about Bombay its dark red fruit is sold in the bazaars for making tarts. 



M. laevigata Wall. 



East Indies. This species is found wild and cidtivated in the Himalayas and else- 

 where in India. The fruit is long, cylindrical, yellowish- white, sweet but insipid.' The 

 long, cylindrical, purple fruit is much eaten.'" 



' Koster, H. Trav. Braz. 363. 181 7. (M. esculenta) 

 Thompson, R. Treas. Bo/. 2:758. 1870. 

 ' Kenrick, W. New Amer. Orch. 225. 1835. 

 ' Hist. Mass. Hort. Soc. 27. 1880. 

 Brandis, D. Forest Ft. 407. 1876. 

 Harlan U. S. Pat. Off. Rpt. 529. 1861. 

 ' Mueller, F. Set. Pis. 285. 1891. 

 Pickering, C. Chron. Hist. Pts. 570. 1879. 

 ' Brandis, D. Forest Ft. 409. 1874. 

 " Royle, J. F. Itiustr. Bot. Himat. i :337. 1839. 



