mōrberie

Mulberry comes from Old English mōrberie, from Latin mōrum (mulberry fruit) + Old English berie (berry). The Latin mōrum came from Greek móron, which may connect to a root meaning 'dark' — a reasonable description of the black mulberry. But the word was also influenced by Latin morus (foolish), which Ovid played on in the Metamorphoses: the mulberry tree turns from white to red when the blood of the dying Pyramus stains its roots. Ovid calls the tree 'foolish' for absorbing the tragedy.

The mulberry's economic importance dwarfs its literary presence. The white mulberry (Morus alba) is the sole food source of the silkworm (Bombyx mori). Sericulture — silk production — requires vast mulberry plantations. China guarded the secret of silk production for centuries; smuggling silkworm eggs or mulberry seeds out of China was punishable by death. When two Nestorian monks reportedly smuggled silkworm eggs to Constantinople in 552 CE, hidden in bamboo canes, they broke a trade monopoly that had lasted millennia.

James I of England attempted to establish a silk industry in Britain in the early 1600s. He ordered 10,000 mulberry trees planted — but he ordered black mulberries (Morus nigra) instead of white mulberries (Morus alba). Silkworms eat white mulberry leaves. The project failed. The surviving trees, now over 400 years old, still stand in various English gardens, producing delicious berries and no silk whatsoever.

Mulberries are rarely sold commercially because the fruit is too soft to transport. It bruises when picked and stains everything it touches — hands, clothes, sidewalks. Trees that overhang parking lots are considered nuisances. A fruit that built the Silk Road economy is now treated as a landscaping liability in suburban America.