mulberry

 

common name for the Moraceae, a family of deciduous or evergreen trees and shrubs, often climbing, mostly of pantropical distribution, and characterized by milky sap. Several genera bear edible fruit, e.g., Morus, (true mulberries), Ficus (the fig genus), and Artocarpus, which includes the breadfruit and related species. The related hemp family, whose plants do not contain latex, were formerly included in this family.

Common Species and Their Uses

The mulberry family is most important as the basis of the silkworm industry; silkworms feed on the leaves of the mulberries (genus Morus) and sometimes of the Osage orange (Maclura pomifera). The white mulberry (M. alba) has been cultivated in China since very early times. In the Middle Ages it began to replace the black mulberry (M. nigra), which had been grown by the Greeks and Romans and, from the 9th cent., by the people of N Europe for silkworm culture. In Greek legend the berries of the white mulberry turned red when its roots were bathed by the blood of the lovers Pyramis and Thisbe, who killed themselves. Both the white and the red mulberry (M. rubra, native to North America) have been cultivated in America since colonial times, but the lack of cheap hand labor prevented the establishment of a silkworm industry. Mulberry fruits are tender and juicy and resemble blackberries. In the South the fruit of M. rubra is made into wine and is considered a valuable agricultural and wildlife feed.

The Osage orange, also called bowwood because it was used by the Osage tribe to make bows, is a hardy tree native to the S central United States. Its fruit is used as a natural insect repellent. Cultivated widely, often as a hedge plant because of its spiny, impenetrable branches, it is a source of a flexible and durable wood and of a yellow-orange dye, from the root bark, that is similar to the more widely used fustic (Maclura tinctoria). The heartwood of fustic yields a yellowish or olive dye, also called fustic, that has been used chiefly for dyeing woolens; it has largely been replaced by synthetic aniline dyes. In its native habitat of Central and South America the fustic is also a timber tree.

Fiber plants of the mulberry family include the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) and the upas tree (Antiaris toxicara) of the East Asian tropics, where the bast fiber is utilized for rough fabrics and for paper, often after a crude retting process. The latex of the upas [Malay,=poison tree] contains a cardiac glycoside used for arrow poison; the similarly employed strychnine tree of the logania family is sometimes also called upas.

The breadfruit (Artocarpus ultilis) is cultivated as a staple food plant in the Pacific tropics and in the West Indies, where it was introduced from Polynesia in the late 18th cent.; the Bounty was carrying breadfruit plants to Jamaica when the famous mutiny occurred. Its wood, fiber, and latex are also variously utilized locally. The important fig genus includes fruit trees, ornamentals (e.g., the rubber plant), and several species renowned in the religion and legends of India (e.g., the banyan and the bo tree).

Classification

The mulberry family is classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Urticales.

Mulberry
Ripe mulberry on tree
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae Phylum: Magnoliophyta Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Rosales Family: Moraceae Genus: Morus L.
Species
See text.

Mulberry (Morus) is a genus of 10–16 species of deciduous trees native to warm temperate and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa and North America, with the majority of the species native to Asia.

The closely related genus Broussonetia is also commonly known as mulberry, notably the Paper Mulberry Broussonetia papyrifera.

Mulberries are fast-growing when young, but soon become slow-growing and rarely exceed 10-15 m tall. The leaves are alternately arranged, simple, often lobed, more often lobed on juvenile shoots than on mature trees, and serrated on the margin. The fruit is a multiple fruit, 2-3 cm long. Mulberries begin as white to pale yellow with pink edges. They are red when ripening. A fully ripened mulberry is dark purple to black, edible, and sweet with a good flavor in several species.

Species

The taxonomy of Morus is complex and disputed. Over 150 species names have been published, but only 10-16 are generally cited as being accepted, though different sources cite different selections of accepted names. The classification is also complicated by widespread hybridisation, with the hybrids being fertile.

The following species are generally accepted:

• Morus alba (White Mulberry; eastern Asia)
• Morus australis (Chinese Mulberry; southeastern Asia)
• Morus mesozygia (African Mulberry; southern and central Africa)
• Morus microphylla (Texas Mulberry; south central North America: Texas, Mexico)
• Morus nigra (Black Mulberry; southwest Asia)
• Morus rubra (Red Mulberry; eastern North America)

The following, all from eastern and southern Asia, are additionally accepted by one or more taxonomic lists or studies; synonymy as given by other lists or studies is indicated in brackets:

• Morus atropurpurea
• Morus bombycis (M. australis)
• Morus cathayana
• Morus indica (M. alba)
• Morus japonica (M. alba)
• Morus kagayamae (M. australis)
• Morus laevigata (M. alba var. laevigata, M. macroura)
• Morus latifolia (M. alba)
• Morus liboensis
• Morus macroura (M. alba var. laevigata)
• Morus mongolica (M. alba var. mongolica)
• Morus multicaulis (M. alba)
• Morus notabilis
• Morus rotundiloba
• Morus serrata (Himalayan Mulberry; M. alba var. serrata)
• Morus tillaefolia
• Morus trilobata (M. australis var. trilobata)
• Morus wittiorum

Uses and cultivation

The ripe fruit is edible and is widely used in pies, tarts, wines and cordials. The fruit of the Black Mulberry, native to southwest Asia, and the Red Mulberry, native to eastern North America, have the strongest flavour. The fruit of the White Mulberry, an east Asian species which is extensively naturalised in urban regions of eastern North America, has a different flavour, sometimes characterised as insipid. The mature fruit contains significant amounts of resveratrol. It is known, though, that unripe fruit and green parts of the plant have a white sap that is intoxicating and mildly hallucinogenic.^[1]

Black, red and white Mulberry are widespread in Northern India, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, where the tree and the fruit are known by the Persian-derived names Toot (Mulberry) or Shahtoot (King's or "Superior" Mulberry). Jams and sherbets are often made from the fruit in this region. The black mulberry was imported into Britain in the 17th. century in the hope that it would be useful in the cultivation of silkworms. It was much used in folk medicine, especially in the treatment of ringworm.

Mulberry leaves, particularly those of the White Mulberry, are ecologically important as the sole food source of the silkworm, the pupa/cocoon of which is used to make silk. Other Lepidoptera larvae also sometimes feed on the plant including Common Emerald, Lime Hawk-moth and The Sycamore.

Mulberries can be grown from seed, and this is often advised as seedling-grown trees are generally of better shape and health. However, they are most often planted from large cuttings, which take root readily.

Anthocyanins from mulberry fruits

Anthocyanins are edible pigments, which hold potential use as natural food colourants. As the safety of synthetic pigments are doubted and in the wake of increasing demand for natural food colourants their significance in food industry increase. Anthocyanins are reported to yield attractive colours such as orange, red and blue. Since they are water-soluble their incorporation into aqueous food systems is easy. Apart from the colouring property anthocyanins are also known to possess antioxidant property and improve visual acuity. They also possess antineoplastic, radiation –protective, vasotonic, vasoprotective, anti-inflammatory, chemo and hepato - protective properties. Xueming Liu and his co workers at the Sericultural Research Institute, Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China in 2004 developed a cheap and industrially feasible method for purification of anthocyanins from mulberry fruit which could be used as a red food colourant of high colour value (of above 100). They found that out of 31 Chinese mulberry cultivars tested the total anthocyanin yield varied from 147.68 mg. to 2725.46 mg. per litre of fruit juice. Extraction and purification was done by using acidified ethanol as effluent solvent and cross-linked polystyrene copolymer - macro porous resin as adsorbant. The results indicated that total sugars, total acids and vitamins remained intact in the residual juice after removal of anthocyanins and that the residual juice could be fermented in order to produce products such as juice, wine and sauce. In many parts of the globe mulberry is grown for its fruit. The fruit is known to have many medicinal properties and used for making jam, wine etc. As the genera Morus has been domesticated over thousands of years and constantly been subjected to heterosis breeding (mainly for improving leaf yield), it would not be impossible for evolving breeds suitable for berry production. The finding offers possible industrial use of mulberry as a source of anthocyanins as natural food colourant, which could enhance the overall profitability of sericulture. Anthocyanin content was found to depend on climate and area of cultivation and it was higher on a sunny day. This finding holds promise for tropical sericulture countries for profiting from industrial anthocyanin production from mulberry through better anthocyanin recovery. This offers a challenging task to the mulberry germplasms resources across the globe, in exploration and collection of fruit yielding mulberry species; their Characterization, cataloguing and evaluation for anthocyanin content by using traditional as well as modern means and bio technology tools; developing an information system about these cultivars or varieties; training and global coordination of utilization of these genetic stocks and finally in evolving suitable breeding strategies to improve the anthocyanin content in potential breeds by collaboration with various research stations in the field of sericulture, plant genetics & breeding, biotechnology and pharmacology. For more information on mulberry, silkworms and sericulture visit http://silkwormmori.blogspot.com/ Reference: Liu, Xueming et. al. (2004): Quantification and purification of Mulberry anthocyanins with macroporous resins.; Journal of Bio medicine and Biotechnology; 2004:5 326-331, http://www.jbb.hindawi.com/.

In culture

A love story about Pyramus and Thisbe explains the color of the fruits.

Notes

References and external links

• Flora of China: Morus
• Flora of North America: Morus
• University of Melbourne: Sorting Morus names
• Museum of Cape Town: Moraceae
• Zhao Weiguo, Pan Yile, Zhang Zhifang Jia Shihai, Miao Xuexia & Huang Yongping. 2005. Phylogeny of the genus Morus. African Journal of Biotechnology 4 (6): 563-569 Online (pdf file)hsb:Běła marušnja

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