![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
From up on the footbridge, it looks a little like chaos, but we can see a commuter rail train leaving North Station, the Zakim bridge, Boston Garden (which changes its name every few years with the change of corporate sponsorship), and some tall apartment buildings over the frosty river.
( Read more... )Urban Nature Pictures 10/27
Oct. 28th, 2010 06:51 pm
Oyster mushrooms growing on a large mulberry tree in The Riverway.
Urban Nature Pictures 6/4
Jun. 5th, 2010 10:03 am
My neighbor Pat picks mulberries down at the town parking lot.
Runner up:
A visitor at my office window.
Mulberries, by request
Jul. 12th, 2009 08:51 amThis is the first in a series of posts done by request in exchange for a donation to my Bowling For Rhinos efforts. (There's still time to donate!)
Mulberry (Genus Morus) is a small fruit-bearing tree of a couple dozen different species. In urban areas, the species most often encountered is white mulberry (M. alba, urban species number 311 in my 2006 project). White mulberry is native to east Asia, and was imported around the world in the 1700s, when intercontinental trade of life forms was booming. Mulberries were already well-known, mainly as the primary food source for the caterpillars that produced silk in Asia. Attempts to start a silk industry in North America were halting at best.
Still, the trees are quick growing, attractive, and produce fruit that is edible to humans. This alone would be reason to see them throughout the cities and suburbs, but humans are not the only agents spreading these trees around. In fact, birds probably plant more mulberries than humans do, through eating the fruit and depositing seed-rich droppings. During the fruiting season (the past 3 weeks or so, this year) you can eat more than your fill of wild mulberry fruits on a short walk in Boston. I find that they vary wildly in flavor from tree to tree, but that even the best ones aren't as tasty as the average black raspberry. Apparently other species of mulberry are tastier, but since white mulberry was cultivated to be worm food, not people food, it doesn't devote as much sugar energy to the fruit as some other kinds. (Probably there are white mulberry cultivars that are selected for tasty fruit, and their genes are out there in the city, accounting for the some of the variability in wild trees.)
The craze of introducing plants and animals around the world seems baffling these days, especially since eastern North America had a perfectly good native mulberry (Red mulberry M. rubra) already living here. (Much as we had perfectly good red foxes, sparrows, game birds, and various wildflowers--but those Europeans loved to make everything look like Europe.) White mulberry is more successful, having survived artificial conditions in Asia for centuries before being brought to a continent with none of its natural enemies. It also hybridizes with red mulberry, and there is some worry that white mulberry will overwhelm red, causing the North American mulberry's extinction. Red mulberry is listed as endangered in Canada, and white mulberry is considered invasive by many agencies.
Mulberry is an exceeding common "weed tree" at the zoo where I work. Mulberry branches have to be cut constantly, often because the tree has sprung up in an inconvenient place, blocking a gate or a pathway. Fallen berries are so profuse that they cause pest issues, fattening rodents and attracting flies. In some places they have to be cleaned up or they form a slick of rotting goo that is slippery and dangerous to walk on! Fortunately, unlike Ailanthus, another weed tree from Asia, mulberry foliage is edible. Branches of this Asian plant are cut and fed to herbivores from Africa and South America, in the urban environment of North America. White mulberry, wanted or not, is a most cosmopolitan tree.
A plaque honoring white mulberry, in Portland Oregon's Chinatown,/a>.
A blog post from summer 2008 where I mention the different tasting mulberries from three different trees in a parking lot.
My 365 species entry on white mulberry. (with lots of pictures!)
Mulberry (Genus Morus) is a small fruit-bearing tree of a couple dozen different species. In urban areas, the species most often encountered is white mulberry (M. alba, urban species number 311 in my 2006 project). White mulberry is native to east Asia, and was imported around the world in the 1700s, when intercontinental trade of life forms was booming. Mulberries were already well-known, mainly as the primary food source for the caterpillars that produced silk in Asia. Attempts to start a silk industry in North America were halting at best.
Still, the trees are quick growing, attractive, and produce fruit that is edible to humans. This alone would be reason to see them throughout the cities and suburbs, but humans are not the only agents spreading these trees around. In fact, birds probably plant more mulberries than humans do, through eating the fruit and depositing seed-rich droppings. During the fruiting season (the past 3 weeks or so, this year) you can eat more than your fill of wild mulberry fruits on a short walk in Boston. I find that they vary wildly in flavor from tree to tree, but that even the best ones aren't as tasty as the average black raspberry. Apparently other species of mulberry are tastier, but since white mulberry was cultivated to be worm food, not people food, it doesn't devote as much sugar energy to the fruit as some other kinds. (Probably there are white mulberry cultivars that are selected for tasty fruit, and their genes are out there in the city, accounting for the some of the variability in wild trees.)
The craze of introducing plants and animals around the world seems baffling these days, especially since eastern North America had a perfectly good native mulberry (Red mulberry M. rubra) already living here. (Much as we had perfectly good red foxes, sparrows, game birds, and various wildflowers--but those Europeans loved to make everything look like Europe.) White mulberry is more successful, having survived artificial conditions in Asia for centuries before being brought to a continent with none of its natural enemies. It also hybridizes with red mulberry, and there is some worry that white mulberry will overwhelm red, causing the North American mulberry's extinction. Red mulberry is listed as endangered in Canada, and white mulberry is considered invasive by many agencies.
Mulberry is an exceeding common "weed tree" at the zoo where I work. Mulberry branches have to be cut constantly, often because the tree has sprung up in an inconvenient place, blocking a gate or a pathway. Fallen berries are so profuse that they cause pest issues, fattening rodents and attracting flies. In some places they have to be cleaned up or they form a slick of rotting goo that is slippery and dangerous to walk on! Fortunately, unlike Ailanthus, another weed tree from Asia, mulberry foliage is edible. Branches of this Asian plant are cut and fed to herbivores from Africa and South America, in the urban environment of North America. White mulberry, wanted or not, is a most cosmopolitan tree.
A plaque honoring white mulberry, in Portland Oregon's Chinatown,/a>.
A blog post from summer 2008 where I mention the different tasting mulberries from three different trees in a parking lot.
My 365 species entry on white mulberry. (with lots of pictures!)
Oregon photo wrap-up
Aug. 31st, 2008 10:57 am
Portland is nice and all--look at this city park. But we wanted to get away from this hustle and bustle and out to the country. A few more pictures from Forest Park, and then our trip out of Portland.
( 18 more pictures! )Tags:
Noticing the year: 06/21/08, plus a leech
Jun. 21st, 2008 08:00 pmToday I ate my first wild blueberry of the year, at West Roxbury Quarry. There were acres of blueberry bushes, and of the hundreds of berries I saw, there was only one ripe one. A few more days or weeks and there will be a feast. Also I ate a couple handfuls of mulberries, from three different trees growing in the lot where Alexis parks her car. Each tree's berries tasted different, and the largest tree with the darkest berries tasted best. I can see some neighbors have serviceberry trees dropping fruit, but I haven't gotten up the courage to forage them yet.
365 Urban Species. #311: White Mulberry
Nov. 8th, 2006 10:27 am
Photo by
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
urbpan. This mulberry tree, growing in the parking lot of the Brookline Water and Sewer Division, had its entire top cut off, and has produced new, bush-like foliage.Urban species #311: White mulberry Morus alba
When I was teaching myself to identify all the weeds and trees that were growing in my Brighton, Massachusetts yard, years ago, I nearly drove myself crazy with this one. My tree field guide was organized by leaf shape--whether the leaf was toothed around its margin, or lobed, or simple, round or long. This one tree had leaves that were simple (more or less round) or were mitten-shaped (asymmetrically lobed) or were sort of oak leaf like (symmetrically lobed all around); I didn't know where to begin. This was one of the many times that a field guide to urban species would have been helpful. As it turned out, that field guide concentrated on native species anyway, so trees from Eurasia were either not covered or marginalized, even though in North American cities they make up a huge percentage of the tree population. When, in summer, the tree produced copious amounts of fruit, drupes shaped like blackberries, it became clear what the tree was.
White mulberry is exceedingly common in many cities. It was introduced from east Asianin order to feed silkworms, for a silk industry that never got off the ground. Once it was established, birds were happy to gobble up the fruit and spread the seeds all over the New World. The berries are edible for humans, though you may have to sample the fruit of many individuals before you find some that aren't basically flavorless. The color of the fruit also varies from tree to tree. Some individuals produce fruit that is white, and never darkens to a more enticing color. Others bear fruit that is white, red, and nearly black, all at the same time. Red mulberry (M. rubra) is native to the northeast of North America, and may account for some of the better-tasting urban mulberries. All species of mulberry hybridize readily, and produce fertile offspring, so it may be difficult to ascertain whether a given tree is a pure white or some kind of hybrid.
White mulberry is an uncommonly hardy tree, enjoying many urban locations. Frequently it grows from bird droppings along a fence line or in a sidewalk crack. Like Ailanthus, it appears to be a simple weed at first, and then quickly develops in to a difficult-to-remove tree. It may develop as a shrub, or as a small, apple-sized tree. Many kinds of butterfly and moth larvae will fed on mulberry leaves, and they are a favorite staple of hobbyists raising silkworms and other caterpillars.
( Read more... )
