Features:
Common name: Chinese mulberry, paper mulberry
Family: Moraceae
Origin: Asia
Height at maturity: 8 to 12 meters
Hardiness: -5°C
Exposure: sunny, partial shade
Plant type: shrub
Vegetation: perennial
Foliage: deciduous
Flowering: spring
Flower color: pale green
Soil type: all types, supports very calcareous, sandy soils, suitable for drought
Watering: very little almost dry
Use: pot, container, veranda or flower bed
Diseases and Pests:-
Toxicity:
Storage of seeds: 2 years in a dry place away from light at 3/4°C (refrigerator)
Description:
The paper mulberry can measure up to 12 meters in height.
Its bark is grey-beige and streaked. Its branches are pubescent and let flow a white sap if they are pruned.
Its leaves are alternate and measure from 7 to 20 cm, they are of variable shapes (even on the same branch), heart-shaped or deeply lobed, with more abundant lobed leaves on young plants, rough on the surface and downy on the underside and finely toothed margin.
The male flower is an oblong catkin, and the female flower a green globular inflorescence about 1 cm in diameter.
At the end of the summer, the glomerulus lets hatch small orange tubes 1 cm long at the end of which there is a small red seed 1 to 2 mm in diameter. We then have a spherical fruit 3 to 4 cm in diameter, red-orange, sweet and juicy but very fragile. It can be an important source of food for animals.
The fruit is edible and quite good but too fragile to be marketed.
Fairly fast growing, it appreciates dry and poor environments. Spreads quite easily and can become invasive.
The species being dioecious, it is imperative to plant a male and a female to obtain fruit.
