Morus alba

Shrubs or trees, to 15 m. Bark brown tinged with red or yellow, thin, shallowly furrowed, with long, narrow ridges. Branchlets orange-brown or dark green with reddish cast, pubescent or occasionally glabrous; lenticels reddish brown, elliptic, prominent. Buds ovoid, 4-6 mm, apex acute to rounded; outer scales yellow-brown with dark margins, glabrous or with a few marginal trichomes; leaf scars half round, bundle scars numerous, in circle. Leaves: stipules ovate to lanceolate, 5-9 mm, pubescent; petiole 2.5-5 cm, short-pubescent. Leaf blade ovate, often deeply and irregularly lobed, (6-)8-10 × 3-6 cm, base cuneate, truncate, or cordate, margins coarsely serrate to crenate, apex acute to short-acuminate; surfaces abaxially glabrous or sparingly pubescent along major veins or in tufts in axils of principal lateral veins and midribs, adaxially glabrous to sparsely pubescent. Catkins: peduncle and axis pubescent; staminate catkins 2.5-4 cm; pistillate catkins 5-8 mm. Flowers: staminate and pistillate on same or different plants. Staminate flowers: sepals distinct, green with red tip, ca. 1.5 mm, pubescent; filaments ca. 2.7 mm. Pistillate flowers: ovary green, ovoid, slightly compressed, ca. 2 mm, glabrous; style branches divergent, red-brown, 0.5-1 mm; stigma papillose. Syncarps red when immature, becoming black, purple, or nearly white, cylindric, 1.5-2.5 × 1 cm; achenes light brown, ovoid, 2-3 mm.

3-6 hours of sun per day, with protection from intense mid-day sun

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Morus Alba

Morus alba

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