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DESCRIPTIVE BOTANY. 



Order L. URTICACE-ffi. (Nettle Family.) 



Trees, shrubs, or herbs. Leaves generally alternate and stipulate. 

 Flowers unisexual or polygamous, and axillary ; perianth single, some- 

 times adnate to the ovary in the female flower, or wanting ; stamens, 

 when present, usually equal and opposite the lobes of the perianth ; 

 ovary 1-celled, 1-carpelled ; style simple or 2-cleft ; ovule solitary. 

 Fruit an akene or drupe, or many fruits coalescing into a syncarp, 

 with fleshy accrescent torus. 



Genera, 108 ; species, 1,.500 ; habitat, warm and temperate countries. 



MORTIS, Tourn. (Mulberry.) Flowers unisexual, usually monoecious, 

 but in some plants dioecious or polygamous ; male flowers spiked and 



axillary. Sepals 4, equal, 

 imbricate in aestivation, 

 but expanded in flower- 

 ing ; stamens 4. Pistil- 

 late flowers, with a 4-se- 

 paled calyx, in opposite 

 pairs, 1 pair larger, all 

 upright and persistent, 

 and becoming pulpy and 

 juicy. Leaves alternate, 

 simple, exstipulate, de- 

 ciduous, lobed, rough, 3-4 

 inches broad. Flowers 

 greenish - white. Fruit 

 the aggregate of the 

 ovary, called " mulberry." 



MoRDs RUBRA (Red Mulberry). 



1. M. rubra, L. (Red 

 Mulberry.) Leaves ovate, 

 cordate, serrate, rough 

 above, soft and downy 

 beneath, frequently lobed on young shoots. Flowers often dioecious. Fruit 

 dark-purple (when ripe turning black), cylindrical, half to three quarters of 

 an inch in diameter. Fruit ripe in .July. Tree 15 to 30 feet high, but .some- 

 times grows to a much greater height ; head 12 to 15 feet in diameter. 



2. M. alba, L. (White Mulberry.) Leaves obliquely ovate, heart-shaped, 

 acute, serrate, frequently lobed, smooth and shining above. Fruit whitish, 

 soft, sweet, insipid. 



Geography. — M. rubra is a common tree in western New England, the 

 southern parts of Upper Canada, the Dakotas, Kansas, and the South. M. alba 

 flourishes in southern Europe and Asia. It is also found in the L^nited States 

 south of the forty-third parallel of latitude in the older parts of the country. 



Etymologtj. — Moms is from the Greek ix6pov, a mulberry. Rubra is Latin 

 for "red," and alba is Latin for ""white." Mulberry is from the Old English 

 moolhery, Anglo-Saxon, morher'ie, from the Greek fxopov. 



