MORACE^— MULBERRY FAMILY 



RED MULBERRY 



Mortis rubra. 



Moms is the ancient classical name. 



Common. Prefers rich soil of intervale lands and low hills. Sixty 

 to seventy feet high, with a short trunk three or four feet in diam- 

 eter, stout spreading branches making a dense, broad, round-topped 

 head. Roots fibrous, grows rapidly. Juice milky. Ranges from 

 Massachusetts to Florida, westward to Kansas and Nebraska. 



Bark. — Dark brown tinged with red, divided into irregular plates ; 

 separating into thick scales. Branchlets at first dark green, often 

 tinged with red ; later, red brown and finally dark brown. 



Wood. — Pale orange ; light, soft, coarse-grained, not strong, very 

 durable in contact with the soil. Used for fences and in cooperage. 

 Sp. gr., 0.5898 ; weight of cu. ft., 36.75 lbs. 



Winter Buds. — Ovate, rounded at apex, one-fourth of an inch in 

 length, light brown. Scales grow with the growing shoot. No 

 terminal bud is formed. 



Leaves. — Alternate, variable in shape, entire, ovate or semiorbic- 

 ular, three-lobcd sometimes five-lobed ; three to five inches long, 

 more or less cordate at base, serrate, acute or acuminate. Three- 

 nerved or in the lobed leaves, palmately-veincd. They come out of 

 the bud conduplicate, yellow green with reddish tinge ; when full 

 grown are thin, dark bluish green, shining, smooth or rough above, 

 paler green beneath. In autumn they turn a bright yellow and fall 

 early. Petioles stout, grooved, rather long. Stipules caducous. 



Flowers. — May, June, with the leaves ; monoecious and dioecious. 

 Staminate flowers in densely flowered spikes an inch long, on short, 

 hairy peduncles, in the axils of later leaves. A few pistillate are 

 often mixed with these. Pistillate flowers in narrow spikes two to 

 two and a half inches long and borne in the axils of the first leaves. 

 Calyx foui-parted ; stamens four ; filaments elastically expanding ; 



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