MORACEZA—MULBERRY FAMILY 
RED MULBERRY 
Morus ribra. 
Morus 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-lobed 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-veined. 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 ; moncecious 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 four-parted ; stamens four ; filaments elastically expanding ; 
253 
