28 FAMILIAK TKEES 



ordinary branches, bear leaves with from three to five 

 lobes, much resembling those of the common Fig. 

 In autumn the foliage turns to a clear yellow like 

 that of the Wych Elm, to which in several respects 

 it bears considerable resemblance. 



We have in the flowers of this species a gradual 

 transition from the monoecious to the dioecious con- 

 dition. Some specimens produce staminate and car- 

 pellate clusters equally ; in others most of the flowers 

 are staminate or most of them are carpeUate ; and 

 lastly trees sometimes occur with flowers exclusively 

 of one sex. The staminate flowers are in catkins, and 

 the carpeUate ones in a spike-like group which does 

 not at first hang downwards ; but both are of an incon- 

 spicuous greenish white, the pollen being carried by 

 the wind and no inducements to bring insect visit- 

 ants being, therefore, needed. 



To what we have already said as to the structure 

 of the multiple fruit or " sorosis," as it is technically 

 termed, we need only add that it becomes an 

 irregularly oval mass about an inch long and turns 

 from green to crimson and then darkens to a 

 reddish black. Though somewhat resembling the 

 Blackberry, with which, indeed, it is confounded in 

 the Latin Classics, in Early English writings, and 

 in some counties' folk-lore to-day, there is no real 

 similarity of structure, the Blackberry being made up 

 of the numerous carpels of a single flower. 



Physiologically the Mulberry is remarkable for its 

 slow growth, its late leafing, and its great tenacity of 

 life. Trees twelve years old are often not nine feet 

 high and have stems little more than an inch in 



