MORACE^E 



305 



2. Morus celtidifolia, H. B. K. Mulberry. Mexican Mulberry. 

 Leaves ovate, acute or acuminate, rounded or rarely truncate, or often on vigor- 

 ous shoots cordate at the broad base, and 3-lobed, with shallow lateral sinuses and 

 broad coarsely serrate lobes, when they unfold coated below with pale tomentum, and 

 puberulous above, at maturity thin and firm in texture, dark green and often rough- 

 ened on the upper surface, with minute pale tubercles, and paler, smooth or scabrate, 



and glabrous or coated with soft pubescence on the lower surface, and often hirsute, 

 with short stiff pale hairs on the broad orange-colored midribs and primary veins 

 connected by conspicuous reticulate veinlets, in the United States rarely more than 

 1^' long and f wide, turning yellow in the autumn; their petioles slender, hoary- 

 tomentose, becoming pubescent, ^' long, and on trees cultivated in northern Mexico 

 often 4' -5' long, and 2' 3' wide; stipules linear-lanceolate, acute, sometimes falcate, 

 white, and scarious, coated with soft pale tomentum, about ^' long. Flowers usu- 

 ally dioecious, staminate short-pedicellate, in short many-flowered spikes, '-f ' long, 

 calyx dark green, covered on the outer surface with soft pale hairs, deeply divided 

 into 4 equal rounded lobes reddish toward the apex; stamens with bright yellow 

 anthers, their connectives conspicuous, dark green; pistillate sessile, in few-flow- 

 ered spikes, rarely ^' long; calyx divided to the base into 4 thick rounded lobes, the 

 2 outer lobes much broader than the others, dark green, covered with pale scat- 

 tered hairs; ovary green and glabrous, with short stigmatic lobes. Fruit : syncarp 

 \ long, dark purple or nearly black, sweet and palatable; drupe "2 lines long, ovate, 

 rounded at the ends, with a thin fleshy outer covering and a thick-walled light brown 

 nutlet; seed ovate, pointed, pale yellow. 



A tree, sometimes 30 high, with a trunk occasionally 12'-14' in diameter, and slen- 

 der branchlets covered when they first appear with soft white hairs, soon becoming 

 glabrous or nearly so, and in their first winter light orange-red and marked by small 

 lenticels, and by small horizontal nearly obicular elevated concave leaf-scars display- 

 ing a ring of fibro-vascular bundle-scars. Winter-buds ovate, acute, sharp-pointed, 

 and covered by thin lustrous chestnut-brown ovate rounded scales scarious on the 

 margins, those of the inner rows ovate-oblong, rounded at the apex, pale-pubescent 

 on the outer surface, and nearly V long when fully grown. Bark smooth, some- 



