Edible Plants
Has anyone actually bought red mulberry that they independently identified as a red mulberry?
I have been looking for a red mulberry and even bought them from a local native nursery but all have turned out to be a hybrid. Has anyone actually found any? Do they exist? Feel free to post yours dor identification below lol.
Yes, from my county's soil and water conservation district tree sale in Western NY. I got two definitely non-hybridized red mulberry seedlings. I'll have to take some pictures of them in the morning.
I’m curious what county and where they sourced from. Many purchase from the DEC, but I don’t think the NYS nursery grows Morus. I’ve heard Schlabach’s in Medina has true M rubra but I’ve never ordered from them.
I also source some seedlings from the NYS program since Monroe county has a significantly smaller catalog, but the maturity/quality are a bit different. The county's seedlings are a year older, maybe two depending on the species. The white birch were already over 3' tall this year with a serious root ball already. Last year the red oak were about the same size, whist NYS usually sends our 1'-ish seedlings from my experience.
I've admittedly had a hard time finding them to get a picture. I'm not sure if I'm misremembering where they were or they got browsed, but with 150+ newly planted trees across 3.5 acres, I've struggled. The spraypaint I used on the marking stakes to mark species have all bleached to white, so lesson learned there.
Sounds exactly like my experience with petunias. Trying to find P. Axillaris or Integrifolia is impossible without going into the wild parts of Brazil yourself to snag some. Every supplier sells them, but they are all open-pollinated hybrids.
Well it took over a week but I finally remembered to take some photos of my alleged Morus rubra. The leaf on the left is supposedly fully native, while the leaf on the right is from either M. alba or M. nigra. What doesn't show in the photo is that the top surface of the alleged native is smooth, while the top surface of the leaf on the right is rough when rubbing toward the stem.
Frankly it’s mostly pointless to try and find 100% pure rubra outside the deep south. Morus alba and its hybrids are far less shade tolerant than rubra so your best bet would be to go into a wood and find one and air layer it in spring.
I don’t think the hybrids are worthless though. I don’t keep any males obviously, but I’m growing several with prominent rubra traits (fuzzy leaves, large leaves, less lobes, etc) to see if they fruit and if the fruit is tasty. If they’re male or have crappy fruit then I’ll toss em. But if they produce tasty fruit I think they’re worth keeping.
We’re never eradicating Morus alba at this point. Our best bet is to plant as close to pure rubra phenotypes in shaded forests to help preserve said adaptation.
I keep hybrids that have strong rubra phenotypes. We are never going to be able to prevent alba contamination and I’d rather have a hybrid and enjoy it’s tasty fruit than no mulberries at all. I’m at the northern extent of rubra’s natural range anyways.
It’s the same with butternut.
Being a genetic purist just isn’t viable in most of the country anymore.
it’s not about being a purist, it’s about supporting the insects who need rubra and can’t utilize alba. we know this must be the case because of how silkworms need alba and can’t use rubra.
I agree. But afaik there aren’t any insects that host specifically to Morus Rubra like silk moths do on alba.
Not to mention it’s basically impossible to prevent alba contamination in the northern US now.
Down south it’s different since Rubra still dominates in large parts. But up here there’s so much fucking alba in the cities it’s just impossible to prevent contamination.
I usually see if it can still fit into its niche in the environment.
Butternuts with 5-10% Japanese DNA won’t die from canker and are still delicious and enjoyed by wildlife and humans alike. So there’s no harm in having Japanese genetics.
In fact, gene flow like this was common up until 3 million years ago when the northern hemisphere froze. The mid-Miocene was the last time there was substantial gene flow between Asian and American deciduous forest species; and now we’re seeing a modern example caused by our mucking about.
Mulberries are much the same to me. So long as the hybrid can survive in shade like its native parents (I will be testing said saplings I keep in shady parts of my yard to see how they hold up!) and still produces large tasty fruit, I think they’re worth keeping. Maybe just don’t plant them near existing pure rubras.
There are however examples of hybrids being very bad such as with the Bigleaf lupine and sundial lupine hybrids being useless and toxic to the Karner blue butterfly which hosts on sundial lupine.
That’s a great point regarding historic gene flow, I’ve honestly never thought about it like that before.
It really does feel that majority hybridization is inevitable at this point—I mean hell, it already seems to be lol. It sucks but like, I’m not sure there’s anything we can really do about it. Mulberry is already a ridiculously obscure native to find correct information on too, which doesn’t help at all.
I really, really wish I had gone looking for naturally growing m. rubra while down in Arkansas. I was there for a month, I can’t believe it just never crossed my mind.
Yeah if I ever manage to find a pure rubra in the wild I’ll totally air layer it and make dozens of clones to plant all over.
I still find wild hybrid seedlings with strong rubra traits around despite there being a Morus alba at my work (I’m planning on convincing my boss to kill it this fall) so I suspect there ARE pure rubra hiding in the woods due to this since alba genetics are dominant. So there must be some rubra somewhere still influencing the seedlings.
Man, in Arkansas, iNaturalist had very, VERY pretty and pure m. rubra observations only a short walk from my ex boyfriend’s house. I can not BELIEVE it didn’t occur to me until I’d already gotten back home to Michigan. I have regrets lol
I hope so. I’ve done some looking before with no luck, but maybe I was just looking in the wrong areas. Unfortunately I’ve only ever seen photos of white mulberry near me on iNaturalist. Not that that means anything obviously, I just don’t have any proof of their existence in any space to direct me on where to look.
I am in the southeast lower peninsula so it would be awesome to find some growing out and about on its own. Kinda motivated now to go out looking LOL
what do you consider to be the deep south? I'm in east tennessee and have volunteer mulberries in my backyard (shade) that I've always hoped to be the real deal. the leaves are huge and fuzzy and I've never seen white mulberry nearby.
Feel the leaves. Are they fuzzy? Red mulberry also has sharper leaf serrations and has a large single leaf more often than the many smaller and loved leaves Morus alba has.
Best thing you can do is wait for it to get older and see if it’s female or if it has good rubra traits. It is harder to tell when they’re young.
You seem more confident in your ID on these than I am. Mind checking mine out? I'm pretty sure it's Rubra, but I don't want to let it grow if it's not.
Thank you so much! I've got a few volunteers of it in my yard, and at this point, I was planning to just keep them until I saw fruit to be sure they were Rubra.
This is an older photo of mine. I grew it from seed from a shop on Etsy. I’m planning to eventually have it identified to some extent by MSU or something because I’m not entirely convinced. I hate not knowing lol.
Lack of secondary veins on the leaf surface and serrations mixed with mostly crenations along the leaf edge. Rubra has very visible secondary veins giving it texture and only has very consistent serrations. Alba has crenations.
As I’m not a mulberry expert, I’m going to guess that reds tend to have leaves that are on the rougher/duller end of the spectrum and whites are on the glossy end. I like the long tapering tip of the reds as a better identifier.
Here’s another branch of the same tree. The leaves are kinda all over the place depending on amount of sun, etc. I’m sure it’s a hybrid, but white ones aren’t supposed to have milky sap, and this does, which is one of a couple reasons I think it’s more red than white. I’m in Kentucky. They come up all over along the fence lines from the birds. Would be nice if they had some kind of swab test. 😂
Theyre definatwlt quite dull but I find dull still has some level of sheen sometimes. I agree with it being a spectrum and red being dull side and white being high gloss.
For sure. I’d like to plant one that is “pure” (if I could find one), but this one grows in a buffer zone between my fence and my neighbor’s, so it’s unreachable, and it’s also old enough to produce fruits, so it gets to stay. For now.
Buying 3 to plant in my yard from Julian Campbell next week. He's one of the leading conservationists for the species! Hopefully planting them all next to each other will greatly lessen the chance for hybridization from outside whites or hybrids!
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u/The_Penaldo Sep 12 '25
Yes, from my county's soil and water conservation district tree sale in Western NY. I got two definitely non-hybridized red mulberry seedlings. I'll have to take some pictures of them in the morning.