Common name: White Mulberry

White Mulberry is a fruit tree originating from China. Exceptional specimens may reach up to 20 m (65 ft), though it is more typically a small tree, 9 to 12 m (30 to 40 ft) tall, with a straight trunk supporting a pyramidal or rounded crown of gently weeping branches. The bark is light grey, smooth, becoming fissured on older trees.

Through selective breeding over many years, it comes in a range of cultivars, with variation in fruit size, shape, and colour; plant size, including dwarf forms; and heat and cold tolerance.

The leaves are medium-sized, light glossy green and come in two forms, even on the same tree, either oval with smooth margins or palmate and deeply lobed. They are densely arranged alternately along the stems and are deciduous, falling off during seasonally dry or cool weather.

The new leaves emerge in spring, along with tiny, greenish-white female and male flowers held in separate, finger-like clusters arising at nodes along the branches. The fertilised female flowers develop into small, elongated, raspberry-like fruit that ripens in summer to dark purple, red, pink, or green-white, depending on the variety.  

Edible uses

Fresh fruit - Under favourable growing conditions, the fruit ripens sufficiently and becomes sweet and flavoursome, reminiscent of cantaloupe or rockmelon. People mainly eat it fresh...

Fruit spread - ...or make it into jam soon after harvesting, as it deteriorates quickly.

Alcoholic drink - The fruit can also be made into wine...

Dried fruit - ...and, when dried, has a sweet, raisin-like taste.

Natural food colouring - The leaves are a main source of chlorophyll for the pharmaceutical and food industries, and it is extracted for use as a natural colouring agent, especially in foods that do not require heat treatment, such as chilled desserts.

Environmental uses

Shade tree - Gardeners commonly grow the tree as an ornamental shade...

Home garden tree - ...or landscape tree

Foliage ornamental - ...for its shapely form and dense, green foliage. However, gardeners usually plant only fruitless varieties because fruit drop creates litter.

Material uses

Livestock feed - The leaves have a long history of use as silkworm feed and are also a valuable livestock feed, mainly for goats and cattle. They have a high crude protein content, about 15% of their dry weight.

Hardwood - The wood is fine-grained and medium-weight, averaging around 750 kilograms per cubic meter (47 lbs per cubic ft). Still, it has low natural resistance to decay, and the logs are small in diameter, making it impractical to saw them into planks.

Turnery - The wood is mostly used in its roundwood form, mainly for turning or carving sporting articles such as hockey sticks and bats, for which it is well suited because of its strength and flexibility.

Firewood - The wood also makes an excellent firewood when properly dried.

Natural cosmetic - Chlorophyll from the leaves is also extracted for use in cosmetics and toiletries, such as toothpaste.

Health uses

Vitamin K - Chlorophyll from the leaves is also high in Vitamin K,

Natural blood tonic - ...and is widely promoted as a blood tonic,

Natural liver tonic - ...and a liver tonic.

Climate

Although naturally adapted to warm-temperate climates, White mulberry grows and fruits well in moderately humid subtropical and tropical climates, generally areas with annual lows of 10 to 25°C, annual highs of 19 to 36°C, annual rainfall of 300 to 2200 mm and a dry season of 3 to 8 months, extending to 12 months with irrigation or groundwater.

White mulberry is also grown in humid tropical lowland climates to produce leaves for feeding to livestock, but this is usually at the expense of fruit production, due to the susceptibility of the fruit to fungal disease brought on by hot, humid conditions.

Growing

New plants are usually raised from one-year-old hardwood cuttings. White mulberry performs best in rich, free-draining clay and loam soils that are moderately acidic to slightly alkaline (generally pH 6.0 to 7.5) and in sites with full to partial sun exposure. It is susceptible to wind damage and should not be planted on strongly windy sites.

Problem features

Birds are attracted to the fruit and carry the seed far, causing it to escape cultivation. As a result of widespread introduction, it has naturalised in many countries outside its native range. It is recorded as an agricultural weed in Australia and, more seriously, as an invasive plant species in South Africa.

The unripe fruit reportedly contains a hallucinogen, and the ripe fruit drops to the ground and stains whatever they land on.

Books

• Attokaran, M. 2011, Natural food flavors and colorants, Institute of Food Technologists, Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Oxfordshire

• Barwick, M., et al. 2004, Tropical & subtropical trees : a worldwide encyclopaedic guide, Thames and Hudson, London

• Gohl, B. 1981, Tropical Feeds : feed information summaries and nutritive values (Revised edition), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome

• Hocking, D. 1993, Trees for drylands, International Science Publisher, New York

• Jensen, M. 1999, Trees commonly cultivated in Southeast Asia : an illustrated field guide, 2nd ed., Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP), Bangkok

• Kennard, W. C. & Winters, H. F. 1960, Some fruits and nuts for the tropics, Miscellaneous Publication No. 801, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Federal Experimental Station, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico

• Krishen, P. 2006, Trees of Delhi : a field guide, Dorling Kindersley Publishers, Delhi

• Luna, R. K 1996, Plantation trees, International Book Distributors, Dehradun, Uttarakhand

• Martin, F. W & Ruberte, R. M. 1975, Edible leaves of the tropics, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Mayaguez, Puerto Rico

• Oakman, H. 1981, Tropical and subtropical gardening, 2nd ed., Jacaranda Wiley Publications, Milton, Queensland

• Parrotta, J. A. 2001, Healing plants of peninsular India, CABI Publishing, Wallingford, Oxfordshire

• Perry, B. 2010, Landscape plants for California gardens: an illustrated reference of plants for California landscapes, Land Design Publishing, Claremont, California

• Randall, R. P. 2002, A global compendium of weeds, R.G. and F.J. Richardson Press, Melbourne

• Randall, R. P. 2007, The introduced flora of Australia and its weed status, Cooperative Research Centre for Australian Weed Management, Glen Osmond, South Australia

• Scheffer, T. C & Morrell, J. J. 1998, Natural durability of wood : a worldwide checklist of species, Forest Research Laboratory, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon

• Sheikh M. I. 1993, Trees of Pakistan, USAID Forestry Planning and Development Project, Pictorial Printers, Islamabad

• Singh, R. V. 1982, Fodder trees of India, Oxford & IBH Publishing Company, New Delhi

• Tindall, H. D. & Rice, L. W. 1990, Fruit and vegetable production in warm climates, International ed., Macmillan, London