Trees with berries ID please?

eiona · #1 (**permalink**) 11-08-2010, 09:08 PM

I'd always though this tree was a lime until today when I found the ground underneath scattered with red berries-very much like raspberries, same sized. The images below are the berry, the leaves and the tree trunk.

Extra info - it's in the grounds of a former (now demolished) mansion house in woodland comprising of natural deciduous, coniferous, ornamental trees (cherry blossom,almond blossom )and a former apple orchard. Swansea Valley. S.Wales

Thanks

eiona

Dorts · #2 (**permalink**) 11-08-2010, 09:10 PM

That's a Mullberry - Morus nigra.
Dorts.

eiona · #3 (**permalink**) 11-08-2010, 09:27 PM

Hello and many thanks for that

Hedera · #4 (**permalink**) 11-08-2010, 09:27 PM

Sounds an interesting place to explore. Take a bag and gather the mulberries, they make nice jam!

eiona · #5 (**permalink**) 11-08-2010, 09:33 PM

Thanks for that because the ground was covered with them. One thing though- lots dogs doing wee-wees and worse in the woods

Harry Eales · #6 (**permalink**) 11-08-2010, 09:40 PM

eiona,

Take a double bed sheet or a large polythene dust cover and a couple of friends and a small boy with you. Go to the tree spread out the sheet get the friends to pin it dowm or hold it open, and get the young lad to climb the tree and shake the branches. You should get a large shower of ripe fruit falling into your collecting sheets.

When your finished tell the small boy to stay where he is as you'll need him again next year.

Very none PC but what the heck, if you get your supply of mulberries who cares. lol.

Harry

eiona · #7 (**permalink**) 11-08-2010, 09:43 PM

LOL! I'd have to kidnap some because my 'little boy' is 25 yrs old.

Cheers for making me laugh before going to bed

eiona

solus · #8 (**permalink**) 12-08-2010, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eiona

LOL! I'd have to kidnap some because my 'little boy' is 25 yrs old.

No, he'll do just fine - after all, there are laws about exploitation of small boys these days (I don't think you're allowed to send them up chimneys any more, for example

)!

The darker the berry, the sweeter they seem to be but they do make your fingers go all red which is a dead give-away if you've been scrumping from a stately home!

An under-appreciated fruit these days it would seem - wish I had a source of enough to make jam from!

willowjay · #9 (**permalink**) 12-08-2010, 02:22 PM

Many, many years ago I lived in a house which had a huge mulberry in the garden. Not only did my grandmother make a wonderful jelly - just like clear jam - from the fruit - but every Saturday morning without fail I would take a large paper bag full of leaves to a neighbour who bred caterpillars. (I presume they were silk moths but I never asked, and was never invited to see them.)

Out of interest are mulberry leaves the food plant to any native butterflies?

eiona · #10 (**permalink**) 13-08-2010, 03:05 PM

@ solus If I was any good at jam making I think I'd be prepared to scramble up the tree myself lol!

@ willowjay- having done a quick google, I discovered that a) pet rabbits can be given mulberry leaves and b) although not indigenous to the UK, you can buy silkworm eggs to breed the moths, then feed the moths to pet ghekos.

There-another lesson learned today! Sorted!