Indian mulberry

Photo: Dinesh Valke — CC BY-SA 2.0 · source

Survives zone 7 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Morus indica, the Indian mulberry, is a Himalayan-origin tree cultivated across South and East Asia chiefly as silkworm fodder and in traditional glucose-regulating remedies, bearing small syncarps that ripen red to dark purple-black and resemble black mulberry fruit. Its taxonomy is notoriously tangled with other Asian mulberries, so plants sold under this name vary in identity.

Hardiness

Zone 7–9

Habit

Tree

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

June–Aug

Mature size

Tree 8–12 m; dwarf forms containerable

Light

Full sun

Soil pH

6.0–7.5 (lime-tolerant)

Environment

Subtropical

Native range

The Indian subcontinent and mainland South-East Asia — India, Bangladesh, the Andamans and Assam east through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. Widely cultivated for sericulture well beyond that, and naturalised across East and Central Africa, the Indian Ocean islands and the Pacific. The East Asian range once given for this species belongs to its relatives M. australis and M. alba.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

2–3 yrs

Growth speed

Not documented with a specific rate for this species; agroforestry sources note its favorable growth temperature as roughly 24–35°C, and like other mulberries it is generally considered fast-growing in warm conditions.

Spacing

500 cm (197 in) apart — about 25 m² (269 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Highly variable leaves, lanceolate to broadly ovate and simple to deeply palmately lobed, 4–14cm long, with a rough upper surface, a base ranging from cordate to wedge-shaped, and margins finely toothed to entire.

Root system

Species-specific documentation is limited, but like other mulberries it is understood to have brittle roots that resent disturbance and are best planted from small, undisturbed nursery stock.

Fruit description

A short-cylindrical syncarp only about 0.5–1.5cm long that ripens red to dark purple-black, with conspicuously protruding styles giving the surface a bristly look — resembling black mulberry (M. nigra) in color when fully ripe.

Propagation

In its main cultivation context — Indian sericulture — propagated overwhelmingly by hardwood stem cuttings (roughly 22–23cm long with 3–4 buds, pencil-thick), with seed and root-grafting used less commonly; the same cutting method is the standard approach for garden specimens.

Pollination

Documented as monoecious, with male and female flowers on the same tree — often on separate branches — so a single specimen can produce fruit without a separate pollinator.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.