My Favorite Mulberry Tree

[WDH]

It is that time of the year again!  The mulberries are getting ripe .  My favorite mulberry tree is growing along my driveway under a big southern red oak.  It is happy there.  Even with the extreme drought, this little tree has sweet fruit, this year and every year.

I got home from a trip today, and driving in, I stopped to see if there were any mulberries.  Yes!  I got a sweet treat, my first of the year.  Here are a few pics of this wonderful little tree. 


With my daughters, it is a family tradition to take a walk (it is about a mile round trip) to the mulberry tree and either pick them or eat them off the tree.  Does anyone else like mulberries?  Are there any folks out there who have never had one?  Wish I could describe the taste, sorta sweet/tart.

[DanG]

I like'em! 8)  A few small trees have chosen to roost on my place lately.  Never saw them here till about 2 years ago. ???  None of'em have produced any berries yet, though.

[limbrat]

I have two little trees that have been making about a week now. The dew berries and huckleberries are also making. The mayhaws are about over i have been freezing them as i get them gona make some fine jelly.

[pigman]

Of course I like mulberries. 8)  I haven't eaten any for a long time. :( The farm I grew up on had several mulberry trees, but I havn't seen any on this farm. If I remember right, the mulberries in this region didn't get ripe to the middle of summer.


Bob

[WDH]

Hey Dang,

Mulberry is dioecious.  How about that for a fancy term :D.  It means that there are boy plants and girl plants, but you probably already knew that ;D.  There are a few tree species that have male plants and female plants.  Most plants are monoeciousc (no kidding.  I am not making this up ) where a single plant produces both male and female flowers, just at different times so they cannot self pollinate. 

Several species are dioecious, and it is by far the less common arrangement.  Persimmon is one.  Only the girls produce persimmons smiley_gorgeous.  People ask, why doesn't my persimmon produce fruit?  Because it is a boy, and the boys cannot have babies, if I remember my biology correctly :

Pigman,  you might have some, you probably aren't looking hard enough (or did you put them all in that fine furniture you build?)

Congratulations Dang, you must have a boy ;D.

[Tom]

Mulberry grown from seed can be 10 years or longer before fruiting.  Many trees don't last that long.  Folks get tired of them and mow them down.

I was reading awhile back that Mulberry is capable of changing its sex at whim too.  It can be a boy tree or later a girl tree and some have been known to both at once for a period of time. :-\

I found one of the best Mulberry's I had ever eaten in Lake Worth Florida back in 1970.  I planted it at my old house and, as far as I know, it is still there.  It was grown from a cutting in South Florida and I rooted a cutting and brought it north.  That's the best way to get a fruiting tree without waiting the 10 years.  ;D

[WDH]

Tom,
I have read that some mulberries that revert back to the monoecious lifestyle will have both male and female flowers on the same plant, but they are on different limbs ???.

[Tom]

I sure hope so.  :D :D :D

[Larry]

My favorite mulberry is a dead one...since I have a white truck.



Of course I won't turn down a sip or three of fine mulberry wine.

WDH, since you're the teach, can you comment a little on the difference tween white and red?  I'm suspicious those two are interbreeding...just a guess.

[Riles]

You have, perhaps, a pink mulberry?  :D

[WDH]

OK Larry,  here goes........

Red mulberry (Morus rubra) is native.  The leaves are scabrous, that is the upper surface is sand-papery rough.  Just run your tongue along one :D.  Because of this roughness, the leaf is not bright and shiny.

White mulberry (Morus alba) is like many things these days, a chinese import.  It was brought to North America for the silk trade because it is a favorite food for silkworms.  The leaves have the same shape as red, but they are shiny and baby-bottom smooth............

In your pic, the heartwood of that poor deceased mulberry ( :'() is yellowish.  Doesn't it turn brown when exposed to light and dried?

[Larry]

It turns a light brown...not near as dark as osage orange.  It looks quite similar to black locust lumber.

[Dodgy Loner]

I have two mulberries on our property, but sadly they are both boy trees  :'(.  Mulberries are my second favorite native fruit, right behind serviceberries.  There's two serviceberry trees right beside the forestry school at UGA, and the berries should be ripening any day now.  I can't wait digin1

[Larry]

Mulberries are my second favorite native fruit, right behind serviceberries.  There's two serviceberry trees right beside the forestry school at UGA, and the berries should be ripening any day now.  I can't wait digin1

You deep south guys have funny tree names...we call em sarvis.  First sign of spring round here.  Just walked out and checked the berries on one...still a month away.  And I will have to fight the birds to get my share.

I also saw sarvis lumber...course on the shop bandsaw.  Bright white and the intarsia folks really like it.

[Dodgy Loner]

Bright white?  Must not have any heartwood.  The "sarvis" lumber I've sawn is a light reddish brown.

[WDH]

Never had the fruit of serviceberry.  Isn't it a little pome?

[Dodgy Loner]

That's right, it's a red pome, about the size and shape of a blueberry.  They taste like a cross between a blueberry and a cherry and make the most incredible cobler ever.  And unlike my second favorite fruit they don't stain your hands and teeth purple (although that's a small price to pay for a handful of mulberries).

[thurlow]

I don't know where there's a single fruit-bearing mulberry; the thickets they used to grow in have all been dozed into piles to increase the size of fields.  We were never allowed to eat 'em when I'ze a kid;  supposedly they had worms or insect eggs or something.......been too long;  I can't remember.  Of course, the "not allowed" didn't keep us from eating them.  I've also pulled one of those old Farmalls up under a wild/black cherry tree and eaten my fill of them.  You had to eat a good handful before getting past the bitterness.  I've since heard that the fruit is poison, but, if so, I survived. 

[Dodgy Loner]

Wow, someone's been filling you full of questionable information .  I suspect that your parents didn't want you to eat mulberries when you were a kid because they'd stain everything purple.  Worms and insect eggs are not a problem.  And black cherries are perfectly edible, albeit a little bitter, as you mentioned.  It's the wilted leaves that are poisonous, so they're a much bigger problem for livestock than for hungry youngsters.

[thurlow]

Nah.........nobody's been filling me with questionable information; it's been handed down through the generations.  Maybe I've got a few years on you; my grand-dad was born in 1871 (only 6 years after the end of the War of Northern Agression) and I've been around awhile myownself.  I "know" lots of stuff the younger folks don't ...............you probably weren't aware that you couldn't eat/drink dairy products with or after consuming fish.   ;D

[Tom]

I knew that!  I knew that!!

[WDH]

Thurlow,

My grandmother always said that you could not eat fish and drink milk!  Wonder where that came from?  I am still kicking, though .

Tom, 

Do you know the origin of the milk/fish thing?  A lot of the old beliefs were based on long experience.  I have always wondered about that one.

[Tom]

My Grandmomma said it was, "Because".

[WDH]

Tom, that is good enough for me ;).  She was right 99.9% of the time about stuff.  When I was in college and I came home for a weekend, I always went by Granny's place to visit with her a few minutes before I left.  Most times, she would slip me a $20 bill and say, "Buy yourself a hamburger.".  Well, back in the 1970's, hamburgers did not cost $20.  If it wasn't for my wonderful loving Granny, I would have stayed dead broke .  I really loved that woman.  The milk/fish thing brought back warm memories of her, thanks to you Thurlow.  One day I will do the same thing when my college grand kids come by for a visit........Thanks to you Granny. 

[thurlow]

Yep, couldn't drink milk; couldn't have ice cream for dessert............just because.     Had hushpuppies with fish, rather than "bread";  so what do you do if you "get" a fish bone..........eat a biscuit.  8)