the Osage Orange and the Figs - Family Moraceae the Mulberries

THE MULBERRIES, THE OSAGE ORANGE AND THE FIGS - FAMILY MORACEAE. Trees of small or medium size, with milky sap. Leaves sim ple, alternate, deciduous, variable. Flowers minute, in axillary spikes or heads, dicecious or moncecious. Fruit compound, of many small fleshy drupes.

KeY TO GENERA AND SPECIES A. Leaves toothed or lobed, with swollen, netted veins; fruit an edible, oblong berry.

I. Genus MORUS, Linn.

B. Fruit purple; leaves 3 to 5 inches long.

(M. rubra) RED MULBERRY BB. Fruit black; leaves I to 2 inches long.

(M. celtidifolia) MEXICAN MULBERRY AA. Leaves entire; fruit globular.

B. Fruit 4 to 5 inches in diameter, inedible.

2. Genus TOXYLON, Raf.

(T. pomiferum) OSAGE ORANGE BB. Fruit size of pea, ovate; tree habit parasitic.

3. Genus FICUS, Linn.

C. Leaves thick, yellow-green; fruit short stemmed.

(F. aurea) GOLDEN FIG CC. Leaves thin, dark green, fruit long-stemmed.

(F. populnea) POPLAR-LEAF FIG The mulberry family comprises 55 genera and 925 species of temperate zone and tropical plants, of which the fig, genus Ficus, includes 600 species. The hemp, important for its fibrous inner bark, and the hop, are well known herbaceous members of the mulberry family. Hemp is a native of Europe and Asia, but has run wild here, and is now in cultivation throughout both tem perate zones. Hops are used in the brewing of beer, and in the Old World as well as the New are raised as a staple field crop. The plant is native to both hemispheres.

Botanically, the mulberry family lies between the elms and nettles—strange company, but justified by fundamental charac teristics. Three genera of this family have tree forms in America: Morus, the mulberry; Toxylon, the osage orange; and Ficus, the fig. Two native species of mulberry and three exotic species are generally cultivated for their fruit, their wood, and as ornamental trees. Weeping forms are much planted.

r. Genus MORUS, Linn.

Red Mulberry (Morus rubra, Linn.)—Large tree, 6o to 70 feet high, with dense, round head, fibrous roots and milky juice. Bark light brown, reddish, dividing into scaly plates; branches reddish; twigs grey, downy. Wood orange yellow, light, coarse

grained, soft, weak, very durable in soil. Buds ovate, blunt, small. Leaves alternate, variable in form, 3 to 5 inches long, broad, acuminate, serrate, very veiny, often lobed and palmately veined; usdally rough, blue-green above, pale and pubescent beneath, yellow in early autumn; petioles stout, long. Flowers moncecious or diwcious, variable, in stalked, axillary spikes, staminate flowers with flat, 4-lobed calyx and 4 incurved stamens that spread sud denly and lie flat on calyx, forming a cross as they mature; pis tillate flower, a vase-shaped, 4-lobed calyx, with two stigmas protruding. Fruit fleshy calyx lobes, surrounding single seed; whole spike unites to form an aggregate fruit, sweet, juicy, dark purplish red. Preferred habitat, rich well-drained soil. Dis tribution, western Massachusetts to southern Ontario, Michigan, Nebraska, Kansas; south to Florida and Texas. Uses: Wood used in cooperage and for fencing. A worthy tree for ornament, but rarely planted.

The Chinese mulberry (Morus alba), with white fruit, holds a unique economic position, as its leaves are the chosen food of silk worms. No substitute has ever robbed this tree of its pre-eminence maintained for centuries, in its own field of usefulness. The hardy Russian mulberries are derived from Morus alba.

The red mulberry, discovered in Virginia in great abundance, inflamed the minds of early colonists who counted it one of the chief resources of the colony. A tree "apt to feede Silke-worms to make silke" promised truly "a commoditie not meanely profit able" in a new colony—made up of gentlemen. A Frenchman, reporting the abundance of these trees, mentions "some so large that one tree contains as many leaves as will feed Silke-wormes that will make as much silk as may be worth five pounds sterling money." But their sanguine hopes were not realised. The red mulberry is no substitute for the white species. Silk culture is still an Old World industry, even though white mulberries grow in this country.