Taxon Profile:

	The Plant List
	International Plant Name Index
	Tropicos
	Catalogue of Life
	Global Biodiversity Information Facility
	JSTOR Types
	JSTOR
	BHL
	Encyclopedia of Life
	WikiSpecies
	Google Scholar
	PubMed
	Morphbank
	IUCN
	National Center for Biotechnology Information
	Barcode of Life

Family:

Moraceae (Magnoliophyta)

Accepted Name:

This name is currently accepted.

Common Names:

Mulberry Family

Description:

Number of genera: 40

Number of species: 1,000

Description (from PLANTAE): Trees, shrubs, subshrubs, less often lianas or herbs, terrestrial or epiphytic, deciduous or evergreen, sometimes whole, leafy branches abscising. Dioecious or monoecious. Branches sometimes armed with thorns or prickles. Sap clear or more often viscous and white sometimes yellow. Stipules present, often conspicuous, amplexicaul, caducous and leaving a circular scar, sometimes persistent. Leaves alternate (spiral or distichous), rarely opposite, simple; blade margins usually entire, sometimes serrate, sinuate, lobed or rarely spinose-dentate; venation usually pinnate, the lateral veins usually distinctly loop-connected near the margin, sometimes ± 3-nerved at the base. Inflorescences usually axillary, sometimes ramiflorous or cauliflorous, solitary, paired (geminate) or several, unisexual or bisexual, racemes, spikes, globose heads, capitate with a discoid receptacle, the receptacles sometimes convex, cup-shaped, bivalvate or urceolate to spherical with enclosed flowers, involucral bracts sometimes present. Flowers actinomorphic, unisexual (plants monoecious, dioecious or polygamous), usually 4-merous; perianth uniseriate, biseriate or absent. Staminate flowers: tepals 0, 4 or more, distinct or connate; stamens usually equal in number to and opposite the tepals, straight or inflexed in bud, bending outward suddenly at anthesis; pistillodes sometimes present. Pistillate flowers: tepals usually biseriate, 3 or 4, mostly connate; ovary superior to inferior, free or fused to perianth, the carpels 2 (one aborting), the locule 1, the styles usually 2, usually elongate or filiform; the ovule 1, apical and usually anatropous. Fruits drupes and often aggregated (Morus) or connate together with perianth and axes (Artocarpus), or an achene enclosed in fleshy receptacle (syconium) (Ficus). Seeds large or small.

Distribution (from PLANTAE): Cosmopolitan, but most species in the largely tropical genus Ficus.

Economic uses (from PLANTAE): Keystone species. Fig-wasp interaction. Several genera produce edible fruit, although only figs (Ficus) and breadfruit (Artocarpus) are economically important crops. Some fiber obtained from the bark of the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera). Food for silk moths. Fustic from Chlorophora. Sap from Naucleopsis used in South America to make arrow poison affecting the cardiac system. Likewise in Asia, a cardiac gylcoside is used as arrow poison and is obtained from the related Antiaris. Around the same time the Chinese were developing bark and hemp paper (ca. 200-800 AD)--and centuries before Europeans would borrow the technology from the Arabs through Spain--the Mayans and ancient Mexicans in America were also developing paper. The world's first books were produced in China and Mesoamerica around the 9th Century AD. After conquering the Arabs at home, the Spanish sailed to the New World and systematically destroyed every possible "heathen" book they could get their hands on. They of course burned easily as they were made of plant fiber. However, three of the ancient Mayan books (codices) remain. The paper, called "amate" is made from the inner bark of Ficus species.

Flora and Monograph Treatment(s):

Moraceae: [Book] Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
Moraceae: [Book] Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.