THE MULBERRIES 168 



THE MULBERRIES 



The mulberry family includes fifty-five genera and 

 nearly a thousand species of temperate-zone and tropical 

 plants. The genus ficus alone includes six hundred species. 

 Hemp, important for its fibrous, inner bark, and the hop 

 vine are well known herbaceous members of the mulberry 

 family, which stands botanically between the elms and the 

 nettles — strange company, it would seem, but justified by 

 fundamental characteristics. Three genera of this family 

 have tree forms in America — the mulberry, the Osage 

 orange, and the ^g. Two native mulberries and three 

 exotic species are widely cultivated for their fruit, their 

 wood, and as ornamental trees. Weeping mulberries are 

 among the most popular horticultural forms. 



The Red Mulberry 



Morus rubra, Linn. 



The red mulberry grows to be a large dense, round-headed 

 tree, with thick fibrous roots and milky sap. Its alternate 

 leaves, three to five inches long, are variable in form, often 

 irregularly lobed, very veiny, usually rough, blue-green 

 above, pale and pubescent beneath, turning yellow in early 

 autumn. The inconspicuous flower spikes are succeeded 

 by fleshy aggregate fruits like a blackberry, sweet, juicy, 

 dark purple or red, each individual fruit single-seeded. 

 Birds and boys alike throng the trees through the long 

 period during which these berries ripen. They are hardly 

 worthy to rank with the cultivated mulberries as a fruit 

 tree. But planted in poultry yards and hog pastures the 



