Ancient Latin name for the Black Mulberry
Deciduous trees or shrubs; sap milky. Leaves alternate, toothed, sometimes lobed, 3-5 nerves radiating from base. Flowers with sexes separate, either on the same or different trees, hanging in clusters. Petals and stamens 4. Male flowers in spikes, soon shed. Fruit blackberry-like.
Quite widely planted in the 19th century for the fruits and persisting in old parks and gardens. Sometimes spread by bird dispersal of the seed.
Morus rubra L., Red Mulberry from E North America, is occasionally cultivated and differs from M. nigra mainly in being a larger tree with more shallowly cordate leaves that are generally quite densely hairy (not slightly downy) below.
Seed sown immediately after collection.
Fruits like large raspberries.
10-15 species of north temperate or montane tropical regions.
Source: (1997). Moraceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 2. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 1. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
