The mulberry as dedicated by the Greeks to Minerva, probably because it was considered the wisest of trees and Jupiter the protector was called Morea.
White mulberry is considered to have originated in China and is grown mainly in tropical countries. The Chinese discovered that silkworms loved to eat the leaves of this fast-growing tree. The more the silkworms ate, the more silk they produced.
It became naturalized in Europe centuries ago. In 1733, General Oglethorpe brought 500 mulberry trees to Fort Frederica, Georgia. General Oglethorpe was hoping to increase the silk production in the United States by providing the silkworms with their favorite food, mulberry leaves. The tree was naturalized and hybridized with the native red mulberry. The red or American mulberry is native to eastern United States from Massachusetts to Kansas and down to the Gulf coast.
It was the Romans that brought mulberry trees to Britain when they invaded. They used the trees for medicinal purposes, using mulberry leaves to treat diseases of the mouth, trachea and lungs. The first black mulberry trees of England are said to have been planted at Sion House, the seat of the Duke of Northumberland in 1548. Others say that the first mulberry tree planted in England was in the garden at Lambeth Place, by Cardinal Pole 1555.
In the early 1600s, the English King James I, shipped white mulberry trees and silkworms to the colony of Virginia to start silkworm production, which was unsuccessful. However, enthusiasm for silkworm culture reached a peak in the decade of the 1830s when a new, supposedly superior type of mulberry was introduced.
The origin and history of mulberry
