GRAY HILLSIDES AND RIPE MULBERRIES

MULBERRY LEAVES AND FRUIT...

RED MAPLE WITH LEAVES TURNED OVER

...RIPE MULBERRY FRUIT

Wednesday, 8:15 AM.  60 degrees F at the ferry dock, 64 on the back porch, where the thermometer catches the morning's light, but warm, SW wind.  The sky is partly cloudy, the humidity 86%.  As I walked up the street with the dog this morning I noticed a good-sized red maple (Acer rubrum) with so many of its leaves turned over that it looked gray.  I have long used gray leaves as an indicator of an approaching storm, or at least a fast-falling barometer.  When I returned home and checked, the barometer  read 30.04" but was dropping precipitously.  I am reminded of an old lake captain's comment, "When the hills turn gray I head for port."

   I spent yesterday mowing the lawn in the morning, and pruning back the deck's overgrown lilacs and red elderberry in the afternoon.  The later was a very arduous task, as the shrub has been determined to overtake first the herb garden, and then the entire back yard.  The end result is very nice but will have to be done again next year I am sure.

   The mulberry tree in the woods across the street is loaded with juicy blue-black berries.  Last year it did not bear anywhere near as heavily and a month later, probably because it was badly damaged by the heavy snows of the prior winter.  I am not sure of its exact identity, whether it is the Russian mulberry so commonly planted in the past, the red mulberry native much further south ( some reported in southern and mid-Wisconsin) or a hybrid between the two.  It is definitely not a typical Russian mulberry, since I see few of the mitten-shaped leaves so typical of that species, and the leaves are very thick and shinny, in contrast to those of the Russian mulberry, which are thinner and duller.  In any case, the tree is something of a mystery, and I will reprint the post (edited) of that tittle from 8/26/2013.

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   The mulberry tree in the wooded lot across the street is loaded with berries, which for some reason the bears haven't discovered as yet.  I have eaten my fill out of hand.  It is too hard to pick more than that, although they make wonderful pies and preserves.  The raspberry-like fruit is dark purple when ripe, but tastes rather bland unless absolutely falling-off ripe.  

   The white, or Russian mulberry, Morus alba, has long been planted in North America for its fruit, and in the past many farmsteads had a Russian mulberry tree. Its ripe fruit can be white to black or something in-between. Joan has fond childhood memories of climbing the big  mulberry tree on her aunt's farm to pick enough berries to make mulberry jam.  She remembers them as being much bigger and sweeter than those from the tree across the street.  She and her cousins would climb down from the berry tree with coffee cans and tummies filled with berries, and hands and faces stained with berry juice.

   The native red mulberry, Morus rubra, is an occasional forest tree throughout much of the eastern and southeastern US.  It is sometimes found from southern to mid-Wisconsin. Both species have some of their leaves deeply lobed, sometimes being mitten-shaped; the white mulberry has more such leaves, in my experience. I would call our tree a red mulberry except for its far northern location. To add to the confusion, the two species often hybridize. 

   Mulberry tree leaves have in the past been used to feed silk "worms," caterpillars of silk moths, which produce webs for their cocoons, which can be spun into silk.  The red and white mulberry are in the mulberry family, the Moraceae.  Another silk-worm tree, Broussonitia papyrifera, also in the mulberry family, has rather similar leaves and has  occasionally escaped from cultivation in the Southeast.  

   Silk making and raising silkworms on mulberry trees was a growth industry in the eastern  US in the 19th Century. Paterson, NJ was its center.  The effort did not last long, but some of its effects are still with us, such as the Gypsy moth, once used to produce silk along with other silk moth species, and long since escaped into the wild, where it has become a serious forest pest, even as far west as Wisconsin.
   I think I'll go and pick a few mulberries for breakfast.