38 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



It is valued as an attractive shade tree for street planting in southern 

 villages and cities in the regions in which it grows. 



ORDER MOBACE^E : * MULBERRY FAMILY. 



Leaves simple, alternate, sometimes polymorphous, furnished with usually fugacious 

 stipules. Flowers moncecious or dioecious, usually in spikes or heads; 3-5-lobed, becoming 

 fleshy in the fruit, free, imbricated in the bud, or rarely wanting; corolla wanting; stamens 

 as many as the calyx-lobes and opposite them, or fewer and inserted at their bases, with 

 elastic filaments, inflexed in the bud; ovary free; 1- (or sometimes 2) celled, containing 

 a single ovule; style filiform, single or 2-parted. Fruit, an achenium or drupe developed 

 by the succulent calyx and with seed containing fleshy albumen and a curved embryo. 



Trees and shrubs with milky and usually noxious or poisonous juice. They are mostly 

 of the tropics and include many interesting trees, among which are the Banyan, Fig, Bread- 

 fruit trees, etc. 



GENUS BROUSSONETIA, VENT. 



Leaves both alternate and opposite, entire or toothed, serrate, without lobes or variously 

 1-5-lobed, petioled, 3-nerved at base. Flowers dioecious, staminate in cylindrical nodding 

 ament-like spikes ; calyx 4-parted ; stamens 4 ; pistillate flowers capitate with tubular 

 perianth, stalked ovary and 2-cleft style. Fruit in a globular head and nutlet exserted 

 with enlarged red fleshy stipe and perianth. 



Named in honor of T. A 7 . V. Broussonet, a French naturalist. 



Trees and shrubs of three or four species with milky juice and natives of eastern Asia, 

 one species being widely naturalized in eastern United States. 



266. BROUSSONETIA PAPYRIFERA, VENT. 

 PAPER MULBERRY. 



Ger., Papier-Maulbeerbaum. Fr., Murier a papier. Sp., Moral de papel. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves usually ovate, 3-8 in. long, not lobed and also (espe- 

 cially on young plants) variously 3-5-lobed or with single lobe on one side all forms com- 

 monly on the same tree, cordate or rounded at base, acuminate, serrate-dentate, rough 

 above, velvety tomentose beneath, long petiolate. Flowers in middle spring, staminate 

 aments peduncled. Fruit heads % in. across, with red exserted fleshy perianth. 



The Paper Mulberry as seen in this country is a rather low tree with 

 long lateral branches, and when isolated bearing a wide symmetical top 

 covering an area perhaps 40 or 50 ft. (14 m.) across and casting a dense 

 shade. Such trees are generally not quite as tall as broad, and the short 

 trunk may be 3 or 4 ft. (1m.) thick, and is often much gnarled and con- 

 voluted. The bark of younger trunks is smooth and handsomely reticulated 

 with pale yellow lines. 



* Moracece is ranked by some authors as a sub-order of the order Urticacece. 



