MOKACEAS.
75
MORUS.
Flowers monoecious or dioecious ; calyx 4-parted, the divisions imbricated in aesti-vation ; corolla 0; stamens 4, incurved in the bud; disk 0; ovary superior, 1-celled ;ovule solitary, suspended. Fruit drupaceous, inclosed in the thickened succulent calyx.Leaves alternate, stipulate, deciduous.
Morus, Linnaeus , Gen. 283 (1737). — Adanson , Fam. PI. ii. Bentham & Hooker, Gen. iii. 364. — Engler, Engler &
377. — A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. 402. — Endlicher, Gen. Prantl Pflanzenfam. iii. pt. i. 72.
278. — Meisner, Gen. 351. — Baillon, Hist. PI. vi. 190. — Morophorum, Necker, Elem. Bot. iii. 255 (1790).
Trees or shrubs, with thick milky juice, slender terete unarmed branches, scaly bark, and fibrousroots. Buds 1 covered with ovate scales closely imbricated in two ranks, increasing in size from withoutinward, the inner accrescent, caducous, marking in falling the base of the branch with narrow ring-likescars. Leaves conduplicate in the bud, alternate, serrate, entire or three-lobed, three to five-nerved atthe base, petiolate, membranaceous or subcoriaceous, deciduous; stipules inclosing their leaf in the bud,lateral, lanceolate, acute, caducous. Flowers minute, vernal, in pedunculate clusters from the axils of thecaducous bud-scales, or of the lower leaves of the year; the males short-pedicellate, in elongated cylin-drical spikes; 'the females sessile, in short oblong or subglobose, or rarely elongated densely floweredspikes; the males and females on different branches of the same individual or on different individuals,or the two sexes rarely mixed in the same inflorescence. Calyx of the sterile flower deeply divided intofour equal ovate rounded lobes. Stamens four, inserted opposite the lobes of the calyx under the minuterudimentary ovary j filaments filiform, incurved in the bud, in anthesis straightening elastically, exserted;anthers attached on the back below the middle, erect, two-celled, the cells reniform, attached laterallyto the orbicular connective, opening longitudinally. Calyx of the pistillate flower four-parted, the lobesovate or obovate, thickened, often unequal, the two outer broader than the others, persistent, becomingsucculent, and inclosing the fruit. Ovary ovoid or subglobose, sessile, included in the calyx, one-celled,crowned with a central style divided nearly to the base into two equal spreading filiform or subulatevillous stigmatic branches; ovule solitary, suspended from the apex of the cell, campylotropous;micropyle superior. Drupes ovate or obovate, crowned with the remnants of the styles, inclosed inthe succulent thickened colored perianths and more or less united into an edible juicy syncarp; exocarpsubsucculent, thin; endocarp thin or thick, crustaceous . 2 Seed oblong, pendulous; testa thin, membra-naceous ; hilum minute, apical. Embryo incurved in thick fleshy albumen ; cotyledons oblong, equal;radicle ascending, incumbent.
Morus , of which six or seven species can be distinguished, is confined to eastern temperate North America , where two species occur, the elevated regions of Mexico , Central America and western South America , western Asia , India , China , Japan , and the high mountains of the Indian Archipelago. The
1 The North American, Persian , Chinese , and Japanese species Cur. xxii. 306, t. 28. — Foerste, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, xx. 163, t.°f Morus do not form a terminal bud, the end of the branch dying 147, f. 4).
^d falling off during the summer, leaving a scar close to the upper a Baillon, Adansonia, i. 214, t. 8, f. 1-12.axillary bud, which prolongs the branch (Henry, Nov. Act. Nat.