The Mulberries, the Osage Orange and the Figs 



Botanically, the mulberry family lies between the elms and 

 nettles strange company, but justified by fundamental charac- 

 teristics. Three genera of this family have tree forms in America: 

 Morus, the mulberry; Toxylon, the osage orange; and Ficus, the 

 fig. Two native species of mulberry and three exotic species are 

 generally cultivated for their fruit, their wood, and as ornamental 

 trees. Weeping forms are much planted. 



I. Genus MORUS, Linn. 



Red Mulberry {Morus rubra, Linn.) Large tree, 60 to 70 

 feet high, with dense, round head, fibrous roots and milky juice. 

 Bark light brown, reddish, dividing into scaly plates; branches 

 reddish; twigs grey, downy. Wood orange yellow, light, coarse 

 grained, soft, weak, very durable in soil. Buds ovate, blunt, 

 small. Leaves alternate, variable in form, 3 to 5 inches long, broad, 

 acuminate, serrate, very veiny, often lobed and palmately veined; 

 usually rough, blue-green above, pale and pubescent beneath, 

 yellow in early autumn; petioles stout, long. Flowers moncecious 

 or dioecious, variable, in stalked, axillary spikes, staminate flowers 

 with flat, 4-lobed calyx and 4 incurved stamens that spread sud- 

 denly and lie flat on calyx, forming a cross as they mature; pis- 

 tillate flower, a vase-shaped, 4-lobed calyx, with two stigmas 

 protruding. Fruit fleshy calyx lobes, surrounding single seed; 

 whole spike unites to form an aggregate fruit, sweet, juicy, dark 

 purplish red. Preferred habitat, rich well-drained soil. Dis- 

 tribution, western Massachusetts to southern Ontario, Michigan, 

 Nebraska, Kansas; south to Florida and Texas. Uses: Wood 

 used in cooperage and for fencing. A worthy tree for ornament, 

 but rarely planted. 



The Chinese mulberry {Morus alba), with white fruit, holds a 

 unique economic position, as its leaves are the chosen food of silk- 

 worms. No substitute has ever robbed this tree of its pre-eminence 

 maintained for centuries, in its own field of usefulness. The hardy 

 Russian mulberries are derived from Morus alba. 



The red mulberry, discovered in Virginia in great abundance, 

 inflamed the minds of early colonists who counted it one of the 

 chief resources of the colony. A tree "apt to feede Silke-worms 

 to make silke" promised truly "a commoditie not meanely profit- 



240 



