Which means only one thing: somebody who “accepts” those names considers these two leaves to belong to one species. Do you really think that is correct? And how should someone act to distinguish them except for using different names?
Also according to your first link, there’s no such thing as Morus australis/bombycis. However it exists according to the second link. Instead the first link says there’s such a thing as M. boninensis, but the second link says “hell no”.
Sooo… Don’t you think that “accepted” should mean something like “there’s an official list of species which contains the same items on any site”?
@Jah
I will defer to biologists to decide what constitutes a separate species.
Note that several Morus cultivars that were once thought to be separate species have been proven by genetic sequencing to be separate cultivars of the same species. However I have not found any prior use by the biology community of “M. alba f. macrophylla” or “M. latifolia”.
What we really need to confess is that the large-leaved mulberry heavily differs from the small-leaved one. Also there exists a “middle-size-leaved” one which resembles the large-leaved one in all other key features.
For me here it is really important because the large-leaved ones don’t survive here. And they are easily distinguished by growth type, buds, leaves margins, leaves surface, fruits size and shape, etc.
Sometimes I’ve read that the large-leaved one is a polyploid of the small-leaved one. But even if so, the M. nigra is a polyploid species too, but is separated from diploid ones.
English is not my native language and I don’t use a translator, so sometimes my phrases might seem lame. But there are quite much scientifical articles in Russian regarding mulberries. And there are lots of confused species in them too (including the large-leaved alba type considered as nigra, of course). Also I have found some attempts to provide a modern view of Morus taxonomy in English and Russian. All of them are quite lame too
All I’m saying is that Morus genus is not studied enough to have a right to say “I haven’t found that name in a specific list, so there’s no such thing as this plant”. The plant (a separate large-leaved one which is called “M. alba” but differs heavily) exists, and there are scientific names for it in other places.
I think that discussing nomenclature regarding the “Morus alba group” as I call it is actually probably a waste of time. Fact is that there are two groups of mulberry in the northern hemisphere: M.alba in Asia and M.rubra in North America. I would also add M.nigra but it is still being researched/ debated that M.nigra is most likely an ancient mutation of M.alba.
M.rubra is just one form which can be found growing from usda zone 10 up to zone 5 and there is one mutation M.microphylla (Texas mulberry) which is a diminutive form of M.rubra and is only found in warm climate zone.
M.alba can be found in the tropical zone, temperate zone and even cold zone. Over hundreds of thousands of years this species has adopted to specific climatic zones and evolved into several phenotypes. Most botanists will classify these as separate species…I agree…
The problem is that ever since man came into the picture he has been selecting and crossing these mulberries and as I see it we have gotten to a point where it has become virtually impossible to denominate most mulberry varieties because they are the result of accumulated, repetitive crossings to a point where it has become impossible to fit the variety in a specific box. Nearly all mulberries are very promiscuous and will cross very easily. So M.alba with huge leaf size, small leaf size or average leaf size…whatever…is still Morus alba .
Decades ago I was studying the plants of New Zealand. I was taken aback when I learned that nearly all the native plants in its 10 climate zones are of the same Genus.
In my statement I’m trying to make a point that I believe that all Asian mulberry species have originated from M.alba. That includes M.macroura, M.latifolia, M.laevigata, M.bomycis, M.kagayame, M.australis, M.cathayana, M.wittiorum, M.bombycis, etc… These are phenotypes that have evolved into separate species but as I said essentially they are still Morus alba and hence they are very promiscuous and will readily cross with each other. M. nigra seems also to have evolved from M.alba just like the other species mentioned above. It is just hard to believe because of its high ploïdity but there are haploïd, diploïd, triploïd, tetraploid, etc mulberries and also a 22ploid mulberry we know as M.nigra but it seems that even the 22ploid M.nigra evolved from M.alba…
But the point I was trying to make is that modern mulberry varieties can’t be boxed into one single variety because they are the result of complex hybridising.
I am in total agreement with your line of thinking, specifically as it relates to M. nigra. I am also of the belief that nigra is nothing but a unique and singular alba mutant rather than its own species. That it is hyperploid is further proof that it is a mutant. But in the end that’s how new species appear, through the process of random mutation, and in domesticated species, selective breeding of these mutants. So nigra is in fact an alba mutant and could be its own species at the same time. One does not contradict the other.
I have two of these I think that I ordered in October, when I looked them up I had few information on them - they are one year old tree’s, I’ll probably pot them up and not plant them out for the first few years. This thread is a goldmine of information, looking forward to see more research about it - as well as people sharing information about it in this thread!
Good point. To separate into several species or to consider them to be one is always a big question. There are several criterions of species, and several points of view for what is a species.
For example, Felis sylvestris (a wild forest cat) looks exactly as a tabby-colored domestic cat and easily crosses with it. More, there are lots of small cats species living in different areas which more or less resemble each other and can’t be distinguished without knowledge of their origin. And yes, they all give productive crosses with each other and domestic cats.
Same with dogs, ancient human species and more or less all the known animals and plants. There is (or was) always some species which easily cross with each other, give prolific breeds and thus could be considered as one species, but divided into several areas or several exterior types, or several different kinds of behavior, and so on.
But not the same with M. nigra or the large-leaved “alba” which was called M. latifolia in some sources. It DOES NOT produce seeds (sic!) with regular small-leaved M. alba. Because of ploidity or whatever. I’ve checked both ways: used pollens of both to pollinate both.
So the question is only how to call the large-leaved one. Not “if it is alba or not”.
BTW neither it produces seeds with M. macroura. No matter that they look almost the same.
Just to explain what I call “the regular M. alba”. My pronunciation is so bad that I don’t usually make videos for English-speaking audience, thus only Russian description.
And here’s one more video, M. macroura cv. Saharanpur this time. The berries are incredible even under totally artifical light (no any single bit of sunlight here)
