Round The Mulberry Bush

Despite The Words Of The Nursery Rhyme, The Fruitful Mulberry Is Of Course A Tree, Not A Bush

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Is there another fruit tree as magnificent as the mulberry? Its thick green canopy provides deep shade in summer, its sturdy branches are made for kids to climb and its sweet dark berries keep cropping from late spring through to summer so you don’t end up with a wasteful glut of fruit.

This shapely deciduous tree was a favourite of Vincent van Gogh and one of his proudest technical achievements late in life was a painting of a mulberry tree in autumn, its leaves a startling yellow against a blue sky.

Collectively grouped under the family name Moraceae, mulberries are related to figs and widespread in the Northern Hemisphere from southern Europe and northern Africa to the Indian subcontinent. The black mulberry is native to Greece and the Middle East while white mulberry is associated with Asia. Other varieties, such as red Morus rubra, are found in the Americas.

In fact, Moraceae include more than a dozen species and perhaps up to 150 related or hybridised species. In contrast, Australia’s so-called native mulberry — Pipturus argenteus, endemic to the subtropical east coast — isn’t a mulberry at all, though its fruit is similar.

Mulberries are not only delicious but a good source of vitamin C as well as dietary fibre and various minerals. Aside from jams and sherbets, pies, wines and cordials, traditional uses range from a colouring agent to a folk medicine for the treatment of ringworm — though the latter application might have been inspired by mulberry’s attractiveness to silkworms.