Nebraskaland

APRIL 2015 • NEBRASKAland 41 L ast July, the mulberry trees in our South Dakota farmyard were flush with ripe berries and I planned to make a haul. Early one morning I grabbed a plastic ice cream pail from the basement and set out picking berries, tediously one-by-one, from a large, century-old tree. I was soon interrupted, "Get the mulberry sheets," hollered my mother-in-law Lucille from the back porch. Confused, I asked "What?" In a tone that seemed to question my common sense, she repeated, "Get the mulberry sheets. They are in the oak dresser in the hallway. Spread them out below and shake the branches." "Oh, I get it." I thought. "How practical." Sure enough, in the bottom drawer were two well-worn, purple-splotched white sheets, so I grabbed one and headed back to the tree and spread it below. I then gave the over- hanging branch a good shake and the plump blackberry-like fruits fell like manna from heaven onto the sheet. I dragged the sheet below another branch and shook again – more mulberries. In 10 minutes, it was laden with well over a gallon of ripe fruit. I picked out a few stems, leaves and unripe berries, filled my pail and was off to the kitchen. Natural History In its native China, white mulberry (Morus alba) is the primary food of silkworms, and in the early 1600s the species was introduced to our eastern seaboard to raise silkworms. In 1624, to stimulate silk production, the Virginia legislature passed a law requiring every male resident to plant at least four white mulberry trees. "Mulberry mania" – the widespread planting of white mulberry plantations in eastern states – peaked in the early 1800s, but was a short- lived craze. In the late 1830s, cold winters in the north and disease in the south caused mass die-offs of plantation mulberries and the North American silk industry soon withered. Though the plantation trees were dying, the weedy and prolific mulberry had long been escaping plantings and establishing in the wild. Birds relish the fruits, as the purple droppings on your windshield attest, and are proficient seed dispersers. Ornamental and windbreak plantings aided the species' expansion and today white mulberry grows in all the lower 48 states except Nevada. Herbaria specimens from the 1880s indicate white mulberry was then established in only a few eastern Nebraska counties. By the mid-20th Century, however, it was a widespread vagrant growing in vacant lots, fence rows, road ditches and creek bottoms throughout eastern and central Nebraska. To the bane of conservationists and cattlemen, it has also invaded woodlands and prairies displacing native flora and livestock forage. A low-branched, sometimes bushy tree, white mulberry often has several main trunks and can reach 50 feet in height. The shallow, furrowed bark is yellow-brown and the sapwood and roots a vibrant yellow. The wood is described as durable, flexible and elastic, and was once valued in making sporting goods, such as tennis and badminton rackets and hockey sticks. It is still used to make furniture and house and boat building materials. In China and Europe, the fibrous wood is used to make paper. I favor mulberry for firing my wood stove, it being readily available, hot burning and easily split with one swing of the ax. White mulberry stands out as one of the last trees to leaf out in spring and to shed leaves in autumn. The serrated- edged leaves have one to five shallow to deep lobes, characteristic of the species. Some trees, though, especially older individuals, also have unlobed leaves. The unwary might confuse these trees for the native red mulberry (M. rubra) which have mostly unlobed leaves, though with more extended and sharply pointed tips. Red mulberry grows in deciduous forests throughout the eastern United States, including the eastern one-fifth of Nebraska. It has a single trunk with dark brown bark, which further distinguishes it from white mulberry. The small, green male and female flowers of white mulberry occur in separate drooping catkins and appear in late April and May before and as the leaves emerge. Although male and female catkins can occur on the same tree, usually a tree has only female or male flowers and this White Mulberry Mixed emotions and the price for pancakes Story and photos by Gerry Steinauer, botanist Red mulberry has mostly unlobed leaves. White mulberry usually has 1 to 5 lobed leaves.

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