Morus alba "Pakistan alba" Pakistan White Mulberry vs Morus macroura King White/Shahtoot Mulberry

General Fruit Growing
#1

I am very confused.

I ordered what I thought was the mulberry tree my grandfather grew in Jaipur, the King White mulberry which we know as Shahtoot mulberry. Honey sweet, fruitful over a long period, very elongated light golden fruits. I saw many nurseries in Australia carry them but I could not find a single supplier of one in the United States. Many permaculturists in Australia appear to have access to the Morus Macroura King White Pakistan Mulberry and post videos featuring it. I found a nursery at last that called their white pakistan mulberry “king” and described it as intensely honey-sweet and I placed an order thinking it was the shahtoot mulberry I had been hunting for

Well today I received my order and it was a White Pakistan Mulberry from Dave Wilson nursery labelled “Morus alba Pakistan Alba”. I am so confused why someone has decided to name a cultivar of a completely different species Morus alba as Pakistan when we already use “Pakistan mulberry” to refer to Morus macroura. I suppose they have named it such just because it is a Morus alba cultivar with elongated fruits (?) but another website suggested that the nursery could also have it mislabelled (https://www.growingmulberry.org/selection), and the description of the Morus alba is suspiciously similar, in that they are honey-sweet, not lightly raspberry sweet like Morus alba typically.

So I did more digging and found that the ultimate supplier for this species appears to be LE Cooke and they describe the species here: https://www.lecooke.com/Images/Shades/Mulberry/White-Pakistan-Fruiting-Mulberry(RGB).pdf

Very elongated fruit, multimonth fruiting season, rich and sweet flavor. Are they trying to confuse us into thinking we are buying Morus Macroura or have they maybe accidentally mislabelled the Macroura as alba? In this photo it does look almost identical to the true Morus Macroura Shahtoot Mulberry

The true variety is seen here: King White Mulberry (White Shahtoot Mulberry) - Melbourne Foodforest

Please help me figure this out. Thank you!

#2

It is not a widespread convention. If you want Morus macroura then you have to specify it. Further, nurseries world-wide mislabel mulberries.

No.

… is dependent upon local conventions. However, the true species can sometimes be verified by a cytology test for the chromosome ploidy. M. alba is 2x, M. macroura is 4x.

#3

King White is indistinguishable from the so called Pakistan White. It also is the same as “Saharanpur local”

It also goes by the name Australian Green. Go figure.

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#4

IIRC, LE Cooke closed a part of their business that supplied retail nurseries, so Dave Wilson nursery is now one of a few sources. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of confusion and mislabeling with mulberries in nursery business. I don’t have specifically the Dave Wilson version but the varieties named “White Pakistan” and “Saharanpur” that I grow and that I have seen around are the same and, to the best of my understanding, they are M. macroura. Most likely, the tree that you purchased is also the same, despite the “alba” in the label.

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#5

that’s so strange! I looked up Saharanpur local and found the variety on Burnt Ridge nursery, specified as Morus Macroura: Buy Saharanpur Local Mulberry Trees | Burnt Ridge Nursery-Burnt Ridge Nursery

They call theirs white pakistan too. It appears identical to the LE Cooke “Morus alba” variety and also indistinguishable from the true Shahtoot. And if it is the Australian Green variety that would be Morus macroura as well.

I found a blog post of someone comparing Pakistan white to two others labeled Saharanpur and Australian Green and they report they are all identical: Gardening : Long White Mulberries. Saharanpur Local, Australian Green, and Pakistan White.

So I’m leaning toward the conclusion they are all the same and perhaps I should just be patient and let the tree live on my property and see how it goes

#6

everybody calls morus macroura as Pakistan mulberry:

https://garden.org/plants/view/178352/Pakistan-Mulberry-Morus-macroura/

https://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/178025/#b