MULBERRY CULTIVATION (CONT…1) - BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION

Mulberry belongs to the genus MORUS. The number of species varies according to the author, as the species classified by some taxonomists are considered as varieties of the same species by the others. In any case, the number of species belonging to the genus Morus is more than twenty. There is considerable variation in each and every character of the species and the varieties described so far. Hooker (1885) has given the botanical description of the genus Morus as follows:

Trees or shrubs. Leaves alternate, entire toothed or three lobed, base three to five nerved, stipules small, lateral, caduceus. Flowers mono or dioeciously, spikate. Male flower sepals four imbricate. Stamens four, inflexed in bud. Pistil lode turbinate. Female flower sepals four, decussate, imbricate, and succulent in fruit. Ovary included straight one celled, style central, two partite or two fid; ovule pendulous, fruiting spikes or heads many, achene’s enclosed in the succulent perianth. Seed subglo­bose, albumen copious fleshy; embryo incurved, cotyledons oblong equal, radical ascending incumbent ‑ species few, tropical and temperate.

Plant Habitat: The plant is a perennial one, living for a number of years either cultivated or in wild state. Depending upon the type of cultivation, the plant is grown as a bush, tree or a middling.

Plant Height: The plants when allowed to grow as trees attain a height of 20‑25 m. with a girth of‑the trunk about eight m. in the case of Morus serrata.  Where the trees are grown as a fence, they are allowed to grow to the required height and then pruned at the desired height every year. The bush and the middling usually attain a maximum height of 1.5 to 1.8 M.

Stem: Mulberry plants show a number of stem colors depending upon their species, climate or origin. The Mysore Local, Kanva‑2 and Berhampore varieties of the species Morus indica are white to grayish white in colors.