Sorry for the confusion, I meant that if you can, get pictures of the mother tree’s branches.
Does it help to know that the tree I picked the berries from was very full of ripe fruit in late March - early April? Either black or very dark purple fruits about an inch long. The juice stained my hands purple eating them. Good flavor, sweet and tart at the same time, like a wild blackberry you find out in Texas fields. Before that, I had not even seen a mulberry, never tasted one, and only heard of them from the nursery rhyme "around the mulberry bush. After eating them, and they sprouted so easily, I decided to grow some, and also blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Not strawberries, too much work and soil amending for a poor old disabled man. Same reason I’m not trying a vegetable garden yet either. I have Mulberry and Pecan trees, and looking a almond and plum trees, small trees from now on.
I don’t think it really does if it is your one and only encounter with mulberries. I know people who think that black alba mulberry stains and has a strong taste. Even tart depending on where they are on the “tartness tollerance scale”, ripeness of the fruit and the variety they tasted… Well, untill they encounter a nigra. Then they learn about stains and tartness. 
And nigra is at least easier to tell appart from other species when you compare fruit even visually…
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Blockquote I don’t think it really does if it is your one and only encounter with mulberries. I know people who think that black alba mulberry stains and has a strong taste. Even tart depending on where they are on the “tartness tolerance scale”, ripeness of the fruit and the variety they tasted… > Blockquote
Well, I have a pretty high tartness tolerance. I grew up eating sour candy, and even now, I love sour gummy bears, and sour gummy lifesavers, even though I;m not supposed to eat candy anymore. I’ve read a lot in the last few months, and everyone seems to think that alba’s usually bear sweet, but low flavor berries. Not what I’m looking for. The berries I picked were delicious, both sweet and tart, they were dark purple to black, about an inch long. There were also some berries that were still red, but I didn’t try those since I could tell the dark ones were ripe. What brought my attention to the tree to begin with was the dark purple stains on her driveway, and I asked her what they were and she pointed at the tree in her neighbor['s backyard with a branch that was hanging over the fence. Even my girlfriend didn’t know what they were, she brought some to her 83 yr old mother and that’s how we found out these were mulberries. After eating and liking them, the more I read about this species, the more I became to like it. After seeing my dead twigs come back to life in two weeks after separating them also really impressed me on the hardiness of it. Then I start learning about what’s in the leaves, protein, vitamin C, minerals, antioxidants, compounds that help with diabetes, and on. From my quest for shade from the
Texas sun to save on electricity, and I have found an excellent food source. I was reading last night about substituting protein supplements in chicken feed with mulberry leaf meal. It improved the quality of the eggs in laying hens, lowered cholesterol in the meat of chickens bred for food, the yolks in the eggs had less cholesterol and tasted better. And the mulberry leaf meal is a small fraction of the cost of the usual protein added to chicken feed, soybean meal. So, yeah, this family of trees have fascinated me, for now.
edited to try to fix quote
When I separated the seedlings from one berry, I wasn’t paying attention to the color of the roots, but thinking back, they were kind of a yellowish color. On one of those, it grew a root under the mulch but on top of the soil, for about a half inch or so. I covered it with a little bit of potting soil, but I do remember it being kinda orangish. I’ll try to see if I can uncover it and take a pic, since it is so close to the surface, and it was only last week I covered it.
The berries themselves are great chickenfeed, mainly if they have seeds - they were traditionally planted in chicken coops, here in Europe.
Btw, I get the enthusiasm, I’m just trying to narrow it down. I think it’s best to wait for the images. But maybe, whole you wait, you could try and look at images of mulberry fruit around the forum and find something that resembles yours the best. Not just the way the flesh is aggregated, but also size and overall shape.
Actually, the more I look at pics of mulberry tree leaves, the more confused I get. But I have found more pics of lobed leaves that are on (so they claim anyway)rubra, than any other mora. One was close to the ones I have, but most had “fatter” or wider lobes. The house the tree it was at is about 25-30 yrs old, so the tree was probably close to the same age. I couldn’t see the trunk, it was behind a wood fence, another thing I remembered, is he berries were hanging singly, each with their own little stem, not in clusters. I have seen pics of them both ways. Of course their is no telling what genetics the mother tree was carrying, And there was at least one if not more trees close enough to pollinate it. So I guess, growing the old fashioned way, from seeds, there’s no telling what you might get. Like with people.
I appreciate the help everyone who posted on this thread. I don’t think I will get a picture of the mother tree’s bark, since my friend still hasn’t returned my call, or answered my text. For now, I am content on waiting for nature to show me what I have. I will put the three of the six big ones in the ground, and put the other three in pots and let them grow in containers for a few seasons, and once all of the ones I kept are making fruit, I can decide which ones taste the best, and can decide which ones I will keep. I just watched a video about growing mulberries in containers, they do well, and will make themselves a dwarf with the limited root space.
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I’m pretty certain that @GT3377 's mulberry seedlings are pure M.alba, or perhaps albaX(albaxrubra) backcross hybrids.
Best online publication for attempting differentiation between M.rubra and M.alba is here: https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/fnr/fnr_237.pdf
I frequently see ‘fig-like’ leaves on young M.rubra seedlings. Have seen claims that those lobed-leaf seedlings are male… but I’ve not grown any out to see if that claim holds water.
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I sure hope the lobed ones aren’t male. I have two kinds with lobed leaves, one type is bushing out, with smaller lobed leaves, and is shorter. Another type is as tall as the ones with heart shaped leaves, and is growing straight up only, and has identical, but much larger lobed leaves. All the ones with heart shaped leaves have only grown straight up, and have not made any branches, all the leaves are coming out of the trunk. These berries came from a tree with heart shaped dark green leaves, and each berry was on a separate little stem, like the pics in the article for rubra. This was in a suburban neighborhood backyard, and I know that there was another mulberry tree in the backyard of the house on the other side of my friends house, because she told me the berries get on her house on the other side and stain the brick. So there is no telling what I have, and what’s in he genetics of the two trees that are most likely the parents. I do plan on putting 2 of the heart shaped seedlings in the ground in the fall, and one of the lobed leaf bushy types. I guess in a season or two, I will find out the sex, hopefully I get lucky and get both sexes on all trees. The one that has the best berries I will try to propagate. I also want to grow at least a couple of the ones I don’t plant in the ground in containers, just to see what I get. I also have plans for two apple trees, and maybe a couple of dwarf almond trees. I also have a live oat seedling growing in the front yard. I’ve also killed 3 pecan trees I started from seed, mostly because I didn’t amend the soil I planted them in enough, and didn’t wait until fall to put them in the ground.
Interesting publication, however it makes me wonder what variety of alba they used for measurements, or if they observed it in early spring only.
This is a still growing summer leaf on one of my trees, a white-fruiting female alba. My hand is about 7 inches long and the leaf will grow larger, which is common for summer growth. 3-4 inches are common for the earliest spring foliage or trees with poor irrigation. Leaf colour is dark (bottom right of my photo and their figure 2). It may be “bright green” in May but soon turns ivy-green.
What’s interesting to me is @GT3377 's seedling “chicken-leg” leaf shape. How does that happen? I’ve seen some pictures of an alleged nigra (yours is not a nigra) cultivar called Krakow, but all you can find are 2 photos. It doesn’t exist in Poland either.
@GT3377 … on mulberries growing straight up… no side branches.
I let mine grow straight up… no side branching… when they get about 5 ft tall… I cut off the growing tip. When you do that… 4 or 5 leaf nodes below the tip cut… will start growing branches that will go up and out.
I need mine to get that tall before branching because of deer pressure.
My deer love mulberry leaves… but so far have not eaten any above about 4.5 ft.
TNHunter
That’s a big leaf. The other reason I am growing trees, is for shade. We spend most of the summer beginning in mid May either in the high 90’s (F) or low 100’s degrees, and it usually doesn’t start to cool off until Oct. in this part of TX, and I want shade. Those big heart shaped leaves are perfect for it. That’s how I decide where to plant, first where I want shade, which means the tree will get full sun. I’m not sure what your weather is like, but here, we have long hot humid (even with little rain) miserable summers. I won’t even go outside to water my trees until the sun is going down. And we usually have short mild winters, with maybe only one or two instances of snow or ice the whole winter, but most of the time it is above freezing. Is that leaf typical of alba’s? I know none of mine has leaves like that. The more I read, the more I am thinking I have rubra/alba hybrids, and not the fist generation, I just have no history on the parent trees.
I planned to top mine, the ones I plant in the ground, when they go dormant this fall or winter. I don’t have to worry about deer, I have a chain link fence around my yard where the seedlings are, and they will also be planted there too. Rabbits are another story. I caught one sniffing around the seedlings in the pot, and a few had been nibbled, but my dog ran him off before he got very far. They can fit under my back gate. I need to add some kind of barrier to the bottom of the gate.
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