Everything about Morus Plant totally explained
Morus or
Mulberry is a
genus of 10–16 species of
deciduous trees native to warm, temperate, and subtropical regions of
Asia,
Africa, and the
Americas, with the majority of the species native to
Asia.
The closely related genus
Broussonetia is also commonly known as mulberry, notably the
Paper Mulberry,
Broussonetia papyrifera.
Mulberries are fast-growing when young, but soon become slow-growing and rarely exceed 10-15 m tall. The
leaves are alternately arranged, simple, often lobed, more often lobed on juvenile shoots than on mature trees, and serrated on the margin. The
fruit is a
multiple fruit, 2-3 cm long. Mulberries begin as white or green to pale yellow with pink edges. They are red when ripening. A fully ripened mulberry is dark purple to black, edible, and sweet with a good flavor in several species.
Species
The taxonomy of
Morus is complex and disputed. Over 150 species names have been published, but only 10–16 are generally cited as being accepted, though different sources cite
different selections of accepted names. The classification is also complicated by widespread
hybridisation, with the hybrids being fertile.
The following species are generally accepted:
The following, all from eastern and southern Asia, are additionally accepted by one or more taxonomic lists or studies;
synonymy as given by other lists or studies is indicated in parentheses:
| Morus atropurpurea
Morus bombycis (M. australis)
Morus cathayana
Morus indica (M. alba)
Morus japonica (M. alba)
Morus kagayamae (M. australis)
Morus laevigata (M. alba var. laevigata, M. macroura)
Morus latifolia (M. alba)
Morus liboensis
|
Morus macroura (M. alba var. laevigata)
Morus mongolica (M. alba var. mongolica)
Morus multicaulis (M. alba)
Morus notabilis
Morus rotundiloba
Morus serrata (Himalayan Mulberry; M. alba var. serrata)
Morus tillaefolia
Morus trilobata (M. australis var. trilobata)
Morus wittiorum
|
Uses and cultivation
The ripe fruit is edible and is widely used in pies, tarts, wines and cordials. The fruit of the Black Mulberry, native to southwest Asia, and the Red Mulberry, native to eastern North America, have the strongest flavour. The fruit of the White Mulberry, an east Asian species which is extensively naturalised in urban regions of eastern North America, has a different flavour, sometimes characterised as insipid. The mature fruit contains significant amounts of
resveratrol. Unripe fruit and green parts of the plant have a white sap that's intoxicating and mildly
hallucinogenic.
Black, red and white Mulberry are widespread in Northern
India,
Azerbaijan,
Armenia,
Pakistan,
Iran, and
Afghanistan, where the tree and the fruit are known by the
Persian-derived names
Toot (Mulberry) or
Shahtoot (King's or "Superior" Mulberry).
Jams and
sherbets are often made from the fruit in this region. Black mulberry was imported to Britain in the 17th century in the hope that it would be useful in the cultivation of silkworms. It was much used in
folk medicine, especially in the treatment of ringworm.
Mulberry leaves, particularly those of the White Mulberry, are ecologically important as the sole food source of the
silkworm (
Bombyx mori, named after the Mulberry genus
Morus), the pupa/cocoon of which is used to make silk. Other
Lepidoptera larvae also sometimes feed on the plant including
Common Emerald,
Lime Hawk-moth and
The Sycamore.
Mulberries can be grown from seed, and this is often advised as seedling-grown trees are generally of better shape and health. But they're most often planted from large cuttings, which take root readily.
Anthocyanins from mulberry fruits
Anthocyanins are edible pigments which hold potential use as dietary antioxidants providing potential health benefits against a variety of diseases and as natural food colorants. As the safety of synthetic pigments is doubted and in the wake of increasing demand for natural food colorants, their significance in food industry is increasing. Anthocyanins yield attractive colors of fresh plant foods such as orange, red, purple, black and blue. Since they're water-soluble, they're easily extractable and incorporated into aqueous food systems.
A cheap and industrially feasible method to purify anthocyanins from mulberry fruit which could be used as a red food colorant of high color value (of above 100) has been established. Scientists found that out of 31 Chinese mulberry cultivars tested, the total anthocyanin yield varied from 148 mg to 2725 mg per litre of fruit juice. Total sugars, total acids and vitamins remained intact in the residual juice after removal of anthocyanins and that the residual juice could be fermented in order to produce products such as juice, wine and sauce.
Worldwide, mulberry is grown for its fruit. In traditional and
folk medicine, the fruit is believed to have medicinal properties and is used for making jam, wine, and other food products. As the genera Morus has been domesticated over thousands of years and constantly been subjected to heterosis breeding (mainly for improving leaf yield), it's possible to evolve breeds suitable for berry production, thus offering possible industrial use of mulberry as a source of anthocyanins for
functional foods or food colorants which could enhance the overall profitability of sericulture.
Anthocyanin content depends on climate, area of cultivation and is particularly higher in sunny climates. This finding holds promise for tropical sericulture countries to profit from industrial anthocyanin production from mulberry through anthocyanin recovery.
This offers a challenging task to the mulberry germplasm resources for
exploration and collection of fruit yielding mulberry species
their characterization, cataloguing and evaluation for anthocyanin content by using traditional as well as modern means and biotechnology tools
developing an information system about these cultivars or varieties
training and global coordination of genetic stocks
evolving suitable breeding strategies to improve the anthocyanin content in potential breeds by collaboration with various research stations in the field of sericulture, plant genetics and breeding, biotechnology and pharmacology.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Morus Plant'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://morus__plant.totallyexplained.com">Morus (plant) Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
