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Species
Morus alba L. var. multicaulis (Perr.) Loudon
IUCN
NCBI
EOL Text
General: Mulberry family (Moreaceae). White mulberry is an introduced, small to medium sized shrub or tree. The leaves are alternate, simple, serrate or dentate, ovate to broad ovate, and two to seven inches long (Dirr 1990). The flowers are small, greenish, crowded in clusters, and hanging in catkins. The fruit is blackberry like, typically white but sometimes pinkish violet, insipid and so plentiful it litters lawns and pavements (Taylor 1965). The bark is light brown to gray and smooth, becoming divided into narrow scaly ridges.
Distribution: Morus alba is a Chinese tree, cultivated throughout the world wherever silkworms are raised. It is occasionally cultivated in Japan, Europe, North America, and Africa. In Michigan, white mulberry is frequent in urban environments in the southern half of the Lower Peninsula, occasionally in the northern half of the Lower Peninsula and the Upper Peninsula (Barnes & Wagner 1981). This species is naturalized in the urban environment and rare in disturbed forest communities (Ibid.). For current distribution, please consult the Plant profile page for this species on the PLANTS Web site.
"Notes: Cultivated, Native of Saharo-Sindian Region"
More info for the terms: fire exclusion, fire regime, fuel, hardwood
Fuels: As of 2009, no studies specifically addressed fuel characteristics of white mulberry. An ornamental white mulberry in Bakersfield, California, had a projected leaf mass per area of crown of 990 g/m² [77].
Where white mulberry occurs within the range of red mulberry and exhibits growth patterns similar to those of red mulberry, it is unlikely that local fuel characteristics would be altered. Fuel characteristics could potentially be altered in areas where white mulberry establishes in densities and/or growth patterns differing from those of native vegetation, such as where it develops in dense thickets (e.g., see [120]). It is also possible that white mulberry alters fuel characteristics in areas where post-settlement fire exclusion facilitated the establishment of woody species like white mulberry, as was documented in riparian forests in south-central Nebraska [130] and upland areas adjacent to hardwood gallery forests in the northern Great Plains [81].
FIRE REGIMES: It is not known what type of fire regime white mulberry is best adapted to. The current North American distribution of white mulberry includes ecosystems that historically experienced both frequent and infrequent fires of various severities. The impact of white mulberry on these FIRE REGIMES is largely unknown. One study suggests that fire exclusion in hardwood gallery forests in the northern Great Plains has facilitated spread of plants like white mulberry out of riparian corridors and into adjacent upland areas with historically high fire frequencies [81].
See the Fire Regime Table for further information on FIRE REGIMES of vegetation communities in which white mulberry may occur.
Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLDS) Stats
Public Records: 10
Specimens with Barcodes: 53
Species With Barcodes: 1
The white mulberry tree is cultivated and subspontaneous in all . parts of Pakistan from sea level to 3500 m. It is grown for rearing silk worms and for its edible fruits which are cooling and laxative. The fruit is also used for sore throat, dyspepsia and melancholia. It is collected, dried and used as winter food by the Kalash tribes of the Bumboret and Ayun valleys in Chitral. The bark possesses vermifuge and purgative properties. The wood is used chiefly for making hockey sticks, badminton and tennis rackets, cricket bats and stumps. It is also suitable for house building, agricultural implements, furniture & fuel.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | eFloras.org Copyright © Missouri Botanical Garden |
Source | http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=5&taxon_id=200006379 |
Flowering class: Dicot Habit: Shrub Distribution notes: Exotic
- Plant: deciduous tree, 30-50 ft. tall; young bark, inner bark and bark along the roots is bright orange; older bark is grey with narrow irregular fissures; bark splits easily; stems are glabrous to pubescent, not thorny.
- Leaves: alternate, simple, glossy above, toothed, unlobed or lobed with one or many, sometimes deep lobes; upper leaf surface glossy, glabrous or slightly scabrous; lower leaf surface glabrous, or slightly pubescent on the veins and in the vein axils only.
- Flowers, fruits and seeds: flowers are produced in Spring; male and female flowers are on separate plants; male flowers are small, green and occur in 1-2 in. long catkins; female flowers are inconspicuous and crowded in short spikes; fruits form from female flowers; fruits are multiple-seeded berries that range in color from black to pink to white when ripe; contain abundant seed--a single tree is estimated to produce twenty million seeds!
- Spreads: by seed which is consumed by wildlife and deposited in new locations.
- Look-alikes: may be confused with native red mulberry (Morus rubra) which has larger leaves that are dull and rough; basswood (Tilia sp.) with unlobed leaves and flowers and fruits on leaf-like bracts; sassafras (Sassafras albidum) with smooth-margined lobed to unlobed leaves; and paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) with leaves densely gray-pubescent.
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | U.S. National Park Service |
Source | http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/pubs/midatlantic/moal.htm |
More info on this topic.
More info for the terms: cover, hardwood, natural
White mulberry is not restricted to any particular successional stage, occurring in early [45,54,103,112], mid-successional [9,47,89,115,117,121,175], and mature [169,171] plant communities. In some instances, white mulberry established secondarily after other woody species established and provided perches for seed-dispersing birds [45,102,103].
Light: White mulberry tolerates both open and shady conditions. A review states that it cannot grow in shade [30], and a manual to woody landscaping plants reports that it tolerates full sun to light shade [33]. In Ontario, white mulberry was generally found in more open conditions than the native red mulberry [18]. White mulberry seedlings grown in experimental field plots in Nebraska had a 53% higher growth rate when grown in sun compared to shade [100].
Though white mulberry may grow better in open conditions, it is commonly found in low-light areas such as canyon bottoms in west-central Oklahoma [93], lowland forests in southern Illinois [104], and old-growth oak-hickory forests in Indiana [171]. White mulberry seedlings established under the cover of planted pine groves in northeastern Kansas [50], eastern cottonwood in New York [103], and staghorn sumac in southwestern Michigan [45].
Disturbance: There is some evidence that disturbance is conducive to white mulberry establishment, though not in all cases.
Natural disturbance: In southeastern Iowa, white mulberry occurred in silver maple-eastern cottonwood floodplain plant communities, though only in gaps created by dead elms [98]. In contrast, in north-central Virginia, white mulberry had not established in debris avalanche areas 10 years after the disturbance, but was present in nearby reference mixed-hardwood forest [70]. Near Bronx, New York, white mulberry occurred as a relatively common species along edges and in gaps of both black locust and oak-maple plant communities [182]. In north-central Ohio, white mulberry was found in second-growth but not old-growth hardwood forests [175]. White mulberry also established in disturbed forests in Wisconsin [29] and Ontario [37], though no mechanism of disturbance was reported.
White mulberry occurs in many floodplain or riparian forests prone to flooding [6,16,26,35,36,47,61,75,109]. In central Ohio, white mulberry occurred in riparian bottomland forests experiencing groundwater flooding 1 to several times per year [36]. In central Missouri, white mulberry occurred on floodplain oak-hickory forests where inundation could last as long as 1 week [35]. In streamside forests in central Illinois, white mulberry occurred only at those elevational gradients experiencing flooding in 13% to 25% of years but was not present in areas experiencing more frequent flooding [6].
White mulberry is drought tolerant ([17,64,138], reviews by [30,33]), which may be attributed to its well-developed root system [138]. In the southern high plains of Oklahoma, 32.8% of planted white mulberry survived 7 years of drought [17].
Anthropogenic disturbance: In extreme southern Illinois, white mulberry established following salvage-logging after a tornado in a bottomland hardwood forest. It was not found in undisturbed forest or tornado-impacted areas without salvage logging [114]. In central Arizona, white mulberry was frequent on mesquite (Prosopis sp.) terraces characterized as "severely disturbed" following mesquite removal [178]. In southeastern Louisiana, white mulberry established on elevated spoil banks within the bottomland hardwood forest plant community [170]. White mulberry occurred at low levels on a 15- to 20-year-old revegetating lead and zinc mine spoil site in northeastern Oklahoma [54]. White mulberry established on 5- to 9-year-old revegetating landfill sites in South Korea [80]. White mulberry also established following old field abandonment in New Jersey [112] and southwestern Michigan [45].
Successional role: While 1 review suggests that white mulberry has the potential to exclude native vegetation [51], there is little documentation of this impact occurring. White mulberry would most likely alter successional trajectories where it develops in dense thickets, a relatively infrequent establishment pattern. However, on a dredge spoil island in South Carolina, white mulberry established in a thicket so dense that understory vegetation was suppressed [120].
Canada
Rounded National Status Rank: NNA - Not Applicable
United States
Rounded National Status Rank: NNA - Not Applicable
License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
Rights holder/Author | NatureServe |
Source | http://explorer.natureserve.org/servlet/NatureServe?searchName=Morus+alba |