Is this a Mulberry Tree/Bush?

[trickedoutbiker]

I have done lots of research in the past couple days regarding mulberry trees and bushes. So this is not a question presented without adequate research. From my reading, I understand that Mulberry can come as a tree but it can also come as a bush. There are three different kinds, the red Mulberry, the white mulberry, and the Indian Mulberry. The berries look close to raspberries they say. Judging from pictures I have seen, I would say they are right. Some of the species grow a little taller or a little shorter than the other ones, typically growing around 40 to 60 feet tall. Unless it is a bush which is smaller. THEN... in my research I found that multiple types of leaf patterns can be found off of the same plant. You know most trees, every single leaf is the same. Not with a mulberry. They can have two or three different leaf patterns all within the same tree. So after all of my research, I found that it could be a tree or a bush..... its leaf patterns can be one of many, usually with at least one of the patterns having serrated edges..... and the berries look like raspberries...

That makes it difficult for someone like myself to adequately identify it when it can come in many different forms. Not as easy as looking at a palm tree and knowing it is a palm tree hahaha.

So I went on a walk yesterday trying to find a mulberry tree because I also read that they can be quite common in a lot of parks. So I went to a few parks and walked around and couldn't really find anything except for this that I have a picture of here. What kind of plant is this? Is it a mulberry bush? I know it doesn't look like a raspberry berry because I know those are textured and this berry is round.... but does a raspberry start to form as a circle and then take shape or no? I've never watched a raspberry bush grow haha. I don't think I've ever even seen one. This was a bush about 20 feet high, and it had two different leaf patterns on it >> one pattern was a little wider and comes to a point like a spade, and the other pattern is a bit smaller, with the serrated edges i was reading about. You can see the two different patterns in the pictures. Reason I ask all of this is because I am trying to find a source of food for some silkworms I was considering.... would save considerable money on silk chow.

I know of a couple places in my area that grow berries that look like raspberries but they're quite a distance away from me. Thought about traveling there to check out the leaves in those places and post those as well but in due time I guess.

Does anybody know what kind of plant this is though? I have never been an expert tree identifier haha. Wouldn't want to bring home a whole branch of leaves off of it if it wasn't the right thing. I mean if silkworms only eat mulberry leaves, I guess I could give it to them and if they eat it then that means it's a mulberry because I've heard they won't touch anything else no matter what....yea? I feel dumb for asking but it seems confusing. I mean there's lots of standard trees I can identify like a tulip tree or a maple tree or a pine tree. Those always look the same though.

 

[bobcochran]

The pic on the left is not a Mulberry, looks like miniature rose maybe. The "berry" looks like a small rose hip. It's too early for Mulberry fruit. The pic on the right does look like 2 different plants, some of the leaves look like the first pic, but the bigger leaves do look sort of like Mulberry leaves.
Sorry about not being much help with the second pic.

 

[bobcochran]

Looking at the larger spade shaped leaves again, I am pretty certain they are not Mulberry leaves either.
Guess you're going to have to keep looking. I would go to a nursery and look at some Mulberry trees, they're pretty distinctive, once you see them you'll be able to pick them out elsewhere.

 

[ispeedonthe405]

I can't really tell from your pics but if it helps, this is white mulberry, morus alba:

morus alba

• ispeedonthe405
• Apr 16, 2016

And this is a dwarf red mulberry, morus rubra

morus rubra dwarf

• ispeedonthe405
• Apr 16, 2016

 

[Andee]

My 4 year-old mulberry tree is already fruiting and dropping ripe fruit that I don't pick. It's a black mulberry tree. And I wouldn't say they look like rasberries very much, they are much more elongated and their structure since they have a stem inside them reminds me more of a blackberry.

 

[jajeanpierre]

I have done lots of research in the past couple days regarding mulberry trees and bushes. So this is not a question presented without adequate research. From my reading, I understand that Mulberry can come as a tree but it can also come as a bush. There are three different kinds, the red Mulberry, the white mulberry, and the Indian Mulberry. The berries look close to raspberries they say. Judging from pictures I have seen, I would say they are right. Some of the species grow a little taller or a little shorter than the other ones, typically growing around 40 to 60 feet tall. Unless it is a bush which is smaller. THEN... in my research I found that multiple types of leaf patterns can be found off of the same plant. You know most trees, every single leaf is the same. Not with a mulberry. They can have two or three different leaf patterns all within the same tree. So after all of my research, I found that it could be a tree or a bush..... its leaf patterns can be one of many, usually with at least one of the patterns having serrated edges..... and the berries look like raspberries...

That makes it difficult for someone like myself to adequately identify it when it can come in many different forms. Not as easy as looking at a palm tree and knowing it is a palm tree hahaha.

So I went on a walk yesterday trying to find a mulberry tree because I also read that they can be quite common in a lot of parks. So I went to a few parks and walked around and couldn't really find anything except for this that I have a picture of here. What kind of plant is this? Is it a mulberry bush? I know it doesn't look like a raspberry berry because I know those are textured and this berry is round.... but does a raspberry start to form as a circle and then take shape or no? I've never watched a raspberry bush grow haha. I don't think I've ever even seen one. This was a bush about 20 feet high, and it had two different leaf patterns on it >> one pattern was a little wider and comes to a point like a spade, and the other pattern is a bit smaller, with the serrated edges i was reading about. You can see the two different patterns in the pictures. Reason I ask all of this is because I am trying to find a source of food for some silkworms I was considering.... would save considerable money on silk chow.

I know of a couple places in my area that grow berries that look like raspberries but they're quite a distance away from me. Thought about traveling there to check out the leaves in those places and post those as well but in due time I guess.

Does anybody know what kind of plant this is though? I have never been an expert tree identifier haha. Wouldn't want to bring home a whole branch of leaves off of it if it wasn't the right thing. I mean if silkworms only eat mulberry leaves, I guess I could give it to them and if they eat it then that means it's a mulberry because I've heard they won't touch anything else no matter what....yea? I feel dumb for asking but it seems confusing. I mean there's lots of standard trees I can identify like a tulip tree or a maple tree or a pine tree. Those always look the same though.

Please don't take leaves or branches from a park tree or someone's yard without permission. You damage the tree doing it, so you really should have permission from whomever owns it. It also could be sprayed with insecticides.

The plants you showed don't look like mulberry trees. They are quite easy to grow although the silk worms eat a lot more than my trees can produce.

Silkworms eat things other than mulberry leaves although I have never intentionally fed them anything but mulberry leaves or silkworm food. I had some that ate the brown plastic/foam bendy vines right down into the yellow foam.

 

[trickedoutbiker]

I will keep looking and try to find some. Thanks!

 

[Matt Vanilla Gorilla]

Yup, neither is a mulberry!

 

[trickedoutbiker]

Please don't take leaves or branches from a park tree or someone's yard without permission. You damage the tree doing it, so you really should have permission from whomever owns it. It also could be sprayed with insecticides.

I wouldn't just take from a tree that wasn't mine, especially not in someone's yard (unless I asked them first). If I find one at a park, I would get ahold of the Parks and Recreation department and ask them if I could take the leaves off near the end of summer when they'd start to drop because of cooler weather anyways. I'd get silkworms once in the Spring and feed them on chow, grow some, pupate some, hatch moths, mate a few moths, and get some eggs.... Then I'd hold onto the eggs in the fridge until leaves start to turn color, and I'd go get some Mulberry leaves and feed them all through the fall and into the winter. I would deff not destroy a tree for my own needs. I'm a conservationist. I hate seeing people litter and destroy nature and whatnot. Like.... the Earth is one-of-a-kind. Why would people destroy it and do the dumb crap they do sometimes? We destroy this planet, we have nowhere else to go. And if it gets too bad, then one day the Earth is going to clean its own slate and wipe us out with some catastrophe.

Yup, neither is a mulberry!

Thanks!