1350
ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM,
PART 111.
It M. a. 11 sinensis Hort.; M. sinensis Hart.; M. chinensis Lodd. Cat. ,ed. 1836; the Chinese white Mulberry, Amer.; is a large-leavedvariety.
* M. a. 1 2 piimila Nois., ? M. a. nana Hort. Brit., is a shrub, seldomexceeding 10 ft. high. There are plants bearing this name in thearboretum of Messrs. Loddiges, which have leaves nearly as largeas those of M. a. macrophylla.
Other Varieties. All the above sorts are in the arboretum of Messrs.Loddiges; but in the catalogues of foreign nurserymen there are severalother names. In the Humbeque Nursery, near Brussels , a number of va-rieties are cultivated for the American market, where the white mulberryis now much in demand ; and a list of their names will be found in Gardener’sMagazine, vol. xi. p. 539. Castelet, in his Traite sur les Muriers blanes,which is generally considered the best work on the subject extant inFrance , divides the varieties of M. alba, now cultivated in Provence fortheir leaves, into two classes, the wild and the grafted; the latter beingpropagated by grafting, and the former by cuttings, layers, or seeds.
Wild Mulberries.
La Feuille rose. —This is the same as 31. a. 8 rhsea, mentioned above.
La Feuille dor4e, M. a. lilcida Hort., M. lixcida Hort., which has large, heart-shaped,shining leaves, and small purplish fruit.
La Heine bdtarde has the leaves twice as large as those of the Feuille rose, anddeeply toothed. This is probably the Foglia zaxola of the Italians .
La Femclle. —Tree spiny, and sending forth its fruit before its leaves,which are trilobate.
Grafted Mulberries.
La Heine, which has shining leaves, much larger than any of the wild varieties j andash.coloured fruit.
La grosse Heine. —This is a subvariety of M. a. macrophylla, which has the leaves of avery deep green, and the fruit black, instead of white.
La Feuille d'Espagne. —This variety is the same as 31. a. 4 macrophylla, mentioned above.La Feuille de Jiocs has the leaves of a very deep green, and growing in tufts at the ex-tremities of the branches. The fruit is produced in abundance, but never arrivesat maturity. This is probably the Foglia doppia, or double-leaved variety, of theItalian gardeners.
Besides these, there are many garden varieties in the French , German,and Italian nurseries.
Description, Sfc. The white mulberry is readily distinguished from theblack, even in winter, by its more numerous, slender, upright-growing, andwhite-barked shoots. It is a tree of much more rapid gx'owth than M. nigra,and its leaves are not only less rough and more succulent, but they containmore of the glutinous milky substance resembling caoutchouc, which givestenacity to the silk produced by the worms fed on them. They are generallycordate and entire, but sometimes lobed, and always deeply serrated. Thefruit of M. alba and its wild varieties is seldom good for human food, but itis found excellent for poultry; and, for this purpose, a tree of the species wasformerly generally planted in the hasse cour of the old French chateaux.(Bose.) The fruit of M. a. multicaulis, and some other of the highly cultivatedvarieties, is not only eatable, but agreeable. The rate of growth of youngplants is much more rapid than that of M. nigra; plants cut down producingshoots 4 ft. or 5 ft. long in one season ; the tree attaining the height of 20 ft.in five or six years ; and, when full grown, reaching to 30 ft. or 40 ft. Itsduration is not so great as that of M. nigra.
Geography. The white mulberry is only found truly wild in China , in theprovince of Seres, or Serica; it is, however, apparently naturalised in manyparts of Asia Minor and Europe ; and nearly all its varieties are of European origin. It does not embrace so extensive a range of country as M. nigra,being unable to resist either great cold or great heat. In a cultivatedstate, it is found, as a road-side pollard tree, in many parts of France , Spain ,Italy , and Germany as far north as Frankfort on the Oder. In England,it is not very common; and it is scarcely to be found in Scotland , evenagainst a wall.
History, §c. The Chinese appear to have been the first to cultivate themulberry for feeding silkworms; and they are supposed to have discovered theart of making silk 2700 years B. c., in the reign of the Emperor Hong, whoseempress, Si-ling-chi, is said to have first observed the labours of the silk-