Maclura tricuspidata Seeds | Chinese Mulberry
LATIN NAME: Maclura tricuspidata
COMMON NAME: Chinese Mulberry
Plant Profile
The Chinese mulberry, known in Chinese as zhe, is a small thorny tree of three to six metres with a spreading crown, oval leaves and stout spines at the base of each leaf. The fruit is round, orange-red and sweet, and it looks like a small lychee without the shell.
It grows on hillsides and along field edges in eastern China and Korea, and it has been planted for so long that its wild range is uncertain. In Korea it is used as a hedge around fields, since the spines make it stock-proof, and the fruit is gathered in autumn.
Science & Biotechnology
The wood contains a yellow dye, morin, which is one of the few natural yellows that does not need a mordant to fix on silk. The same compound is used in histology as a fluorescent stain for nucleic acids, and it is the reason the tree was grown around silk districts rather than only for its fruit.
The plant is dioecious or monoecious depending on the tree, and the fruit is a multiple, formed from the swollen calyces of many flowers around a central core, as in a mulberry or a fig. The genus is closely related to the mulberries and to the osage orange, and the three share the milky latex and the multiple fruit.
Uses & Benefits
The fruit is eaten fresh and made into jam, and in Korea the young leaves are blanched as a vegetable in spring. The leaves are also fed to silkworms in some districts, which is why the tree is called a mulberry even though it is not one.
The wood is hard, yellow and takes a fine polish, and it is used for small furniture, for tool handles and for the frames of traditional bows. The bark fibre is used for paper and for rope, and the root is used in Chinese medicine. The tree is planted as a hedge and as a living fence. The fruit is also used to make a country wine in Korea, and the bark is used for paper in the same districts.
Growing from Seed
Soak the seed for a day and sow in spring at twenty degrees, or sow the cleaned fruit in autumn and let the winter break dormancy. Germination takes two to four weeks, and the seedlings grow fast enough to plant out in the second year.
Plant out in full sun in any soil that drains, and give it room, since the spines make pruning unpleasant. The tree is hardy to minus twenty and tolerates drought once established. Fruit is carried on female trees, so a seedling may take years to crop, and cuttings from a good female are the reliable route.
Our Take
A thorny Chinese tree with a good fruit, a yellow dye and a long history around silk, and one that makes a stock-proof hedge. Plant a named female for fruit.
Related Reading
Readers interested in Chinese Mulberry frequently explore these as well: