Cranberry shrub or weed?

[MojoRisin]

Last year, I bought 25 cranberry seedlings from the local district and didn't get them all in at camp. I brought a few home to see if I could grow them and later transplant them. The one in the picture is from an area I planted one but it does not look like the others. This thing also grew way more than the others. Did they send me a weed in my mix?

 

[Native Hunter]

It's not a weed. It's a mulberry tree.

It's hard to say exactly which mulberry species it is due to the hybridization that has taken place. By the looks, I would say that one has both native Red Mulberry and the imported White Mulberry in its heritage. To complicate species ID further, mulberry has a polymorphic type of leaf.

Could be a good tree. It will be male or female. If it is a female, it will need a male somewhere in the area to bear fruit, although some sources have reported fruit in the absence of a pollinator. In my location, there are lots of wild ones in the woods, so pollination is not a problem.

 

[wiscwhip]

What Native said!

 

[MojoRisin]

Thanks for the quick reply. Now I have to hope I have another one of those accidentally mixed in too that is a different sex. Either way, it'll end up at camp next year for browse. I'll probably protect it a year or 2 with a cage at camp.

That thing really took off whereas the cranberry shrubs I bought have been very slow growers.

 

[Native Hunter]

Thanks for the quick reply. Now I have to hope I have another one of those accidentally mixed in too that is a different sex. Either way, it'll end up at camp next year for browse. I'll probably protect it a year or 2 with a cage at camp.

That thing really took off whereas the cranberry shrubs I bought have been very slow growers.

Mulberry is a high preference browse plant. I would put it right there in the same category with strawberry bush. Even in areas with low deer density it will get eaten hard, so you will definitely need the cage until it gets its head well above the reach of the deer.

 

[j-bird]

Funny how perspectives are different. I agree it is mulberry.....but it's a weed to me! I have more mulberry around than you can shake a stick at. The birds love the fruit and the deer do browse it some here in high traffic areas but that is about it here. You want more......come and dig up all you want! I actually bush-hog many down every year and have found once established they can be pretty persistent as well (I have mowed a few several times over the years). You will find they like the edges of wooded areas or as area become fallow and the like.

 

[mikmaze]

as j bird, I find em invasive, and undesierable.....

 

[g squared 23]

In the places that I have them, there's a lot of them. They seem to largely get ignored. I'm blasting some this summer to make way for yet another apple tree

 

[Skelly]

I discovered some mulberry like you have a photo of. I have a couple small ones at my house and then a grove of them near my office. Not a lot of deer preference. Occasionally a leaf or two get nipped.

I believe that particular variety is called paper mulberry. More of a round fruit vs the elongated version.

The grove I mentioned at my work did not have a single fruit on them this year and there to be 250-300 small thin tres in that grove.