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  • From: "Ernest Plutko" <ernestplutko@wiktel.com>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] White mulberries vs Morus alba
  • Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2010 19:39:12 -0500

There are white mulberries trees growing on and near the University
Of Minnesota St Paul campus. The alleys near this area have many
small mulberries plants growing like weeds. I tasted some of the
fresh white mulberries. Not good but I did not dry any. I suppose
birds spread the seeds. I saw several kinds of mulberry trees for
sale at a nursery north of St Paul including the weeping kind.



---- Original Message ----
From: lreich@hvc.rr.com
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] White mulberries vs Morus alba
Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2010 19:35:11 -0400

>Quoting from Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden . . .
>
> Three species of mulberries are grown for their fruits:
>the white mulberry, the red mulberry, and the black mulberry. There
>also are wild and deliberate hybrids of the white and the red
>mulberry. (Red and white mulberries have the same number of
>chromosomes; the black mulberry has a different number.) In spite of
>the common names, white, red, and black, do not look at the fruits to
>identify a mulberry by species. White mulberries, for example, might
>produce white, lavender, or even black fruits . . .
>
> White mulberry (Morus alba) is a variable species. The
>fruits are generally very sweet but often lack tartness that gives
>flavor éclat. Fruit size is also variable, with the largest-fruited
>cultivars---‘Pakistan’, for example---bearing berries over three
>inches long. The white mulberry can be characterized more by its
>thin, glossy, light green leaves than by the color of its fruit.
>White mulberry is the most cold-hardy of the three mulberry species,
>though cold-hardiness varies from clone to clone. At the extremes,
>there are those clones damaged at twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit
>above zero and those unfazed by twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit below
>zero. White mulberry is the plant that was introduced into America
>for silkworm fodder but then went on to naturalize and hybridize with
>the native red mulberry.
>
> Many clones of white mulberry were selected for their
>fruit and, because of their cold-hardiness, were grown primarily in
>the northeastern part of the United States. (Some of these cultivars
>might also have been infused with a bit of red mulberry “blood.”) The
>most widely planted, and probably the best, cultivar was ‘New
>American’, found in Connecticut about 1854. The tree produced large,
>tasty, glossy black fruits all summer long. ‘Wellington’ is a
>cultivar offered today whose origin is unknown, but which is very
>similar to, though slightly less cold-hardy than, ‘New American’.
>Other white mulberry cultivars include ‘Trowbridge’, ‘Thorburn’,
>‘White English’, ‘Stubbs’, and ‘Westbrook’, all of which bear
>prolific amounts of good-quality fruits, but none of which is worthy
>of planting in lieu of ‘New American’.
>
> The silkworm craze of the 1830s was fueled in part by the
>introduction into America of a botanical variety of white mulberry,
>Morus alba var. multicaulis, that was supposed to be especially good
>silkworm fodder. After the “multicaulis craze” subsided, these
>strong-growing trees remained and spread their progeny. Their leaves
>are large and dull green; their fruit, black and sweet.
>
> A few multicaulis plants were selected for their fruits,
>the best of which was ‘Downing’, originating in New York about 1846.
>‘Downing’ trees produced tasty, black fruits but, like other
>multicaulis plants, proved to be insufficiently cold-hardy in the
>northeast. ‘New American’ was often sold under the name ‘Downing’.
>
> The Russian mulberry (Morus alba ‘Tatarica’) is yet
>another type of white mulberry, an especially cold-hardy type that
>was introduced into the American West by Mennonites in about 1875.
>Russian mulberries are diminutive in size of tree, leaf, and fruit.
>The fruits are black and sweet, but vary from plant to plant. A
>number of cultivars, such as ‘Ramsey’s White’, ‘White Russian’,
>‘Barnes’, and ‘Victoria’, were propagated as fruit trees, though the
>quality of the fruits was considered poor. One notable Russian
>mulberry was found in the nursery row of John C. Teas in Missouri in
>1883. The original plant just crept along the ground, so when a scion
>of this plant was grafted high on a straight stem of an upright
>Russian mulberry, the resultant plant was an attractive weeping
>mulberry---‘Teas’ Weeping Mulberry’, as the cultivar came to be
>known. Nonetheless, the main value of the Russian mulberry was as a
>hedge plant for the rugged climate of the Midwest.
>
> Red mulberry (Morus rubra) is the largest of the three
>mulberry species grown for fruit and is native to the eastern United
>States from New York west to Nebraska, and down to the Gulf coast.
>The tree has large, sometimes lobed, leaves with blunt teeth. These
>leaves are rough on their upper surfaces and pubescent underneath.
>The fruits are usually deep red, almost black, and have a flavor
>that, in the best clones, almost equals that of the delectable black
>mulberry.
>
> Red mulberries were cultivated primarily in the American
>South. ‘Johnson’, the first mulberry selected for its fruit in
>America, was a red mulberry, and numerous others followed. ‘Johnson’
>fruits were large and black, and had a “rich vinous” flavor. Other
>good-tasting red mulberry cultivars include ‘Travis’ (from Texas in
>1900), ‘Wiseman’, and ‘Cooke’.
>
> Some of the natural hybrids of red and white mulberries
>produce notable fruit. ‘Hicks’, a prolific bearer of cloyingly sweet
>fruits, was widely planted in the South to feed hogs and poultry.
>‘Illinois Everbearing’ was found in 1958 and is noted for bearing
>flavorful, large, nearly seedless fruits throughout the summer. My
>tree tends to cling to its fruits even when they are ripe, which
>makes for clean ground underfoot but harder picking, especially from
>near the ends of branches. Other tasty cultivars are ‘Muddy River’
>and ‘Collier’.
>
> The third mulberry species, the black mulberry (Morus
>nigra), is a native of western Asia and is the species most
>cultivated worldwide for its fruit. Long ago, this species found its
>way to ancient Greece and Rome, and thence to other parts of Europe.
>As if foreshadowing the discrepancies between common names and fruit
>colors, the Roman author Ovid, in the first century a.d., recounts in
>his story of Pyramus and Thisbe that the black mulberry was
>originally white fruited. The fruit turned dark red as commemoration
>of the blood of these two lovers, forbidden by their families to
>marry, whose rendezvous beneath a mulberry tree turned to tragedy.
>Pyramus, mistaking blood on a fallen veil to be that of Thisbe,
>plunged his sword into his heart, and then Thisbe, arriving later and
>realizing what had happened, took the sword and followed him into
>death.
>
> The whiteness of the mulberry soon fled
> And ripening, sadden’d in a dusky red.
>
> Let’s look to the leaves and twigs, rather than the
>fruits, for identification: black mulberry leaves are rough and often
>unlobed, like those of red mulberry, but the black mulberry has
>sturdier twigs with fatter buds. This tree does not grow as large as
>the other two species, perhaps to thirty feet, and is often a bush
>unless deliberately trained as a tree. Fruits of M. nigra are large
>and juicy, with a congenial blend of sweetness and tartness that
>makes it the best-flavored species of mulberry, in my opinion among
>the best-flavored of all fruits!
>
>
>Lee Reich, PhD
>http://www.leereich.com/
>http://leereich.com/blog.html.
>
>Books by Lee Reich:
>A Northeast Gardener's Year
>The Pruning Book
>Weedless Gardening
>Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden
>Landscaping with Fruit
>
>
>
>
>
>
>On Oct 3, 2010, at 3:28 PM, Ernest Plutko wrote:
>
>> Different color mulberries means different species of mulberry.
>Look
>> up on Google. The black mulberries are tasty. The white
>mulberries
>> are yucky. White mulberries leaves are silkworm food.
>>
>> ---- Original Message ----
>> From: swim_at_svc@yahoo.com
>> To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
>> Subject: RE: [NAFEX] White mulberries vs Morus alba
>> Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2010 12:16:33 -0700 (PDT)
>>
>>> The posts about white mulberries have me confused at this point.
>I
>>> thought that the Morus species could produce white, red or dark
>fruit
>>> and that the fruit color did not dictated what species of Morus
>you
>>> had. Yet the posts all seem to assume that if you have fruit that
>is
>>> white, then you are dealing with M. alba.
>>>
>>> Can someone who knows for sure clarify this in the interest of
>>> accuracy?
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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