XII. MORACEÆ.
Tree or shrubs, with milky juice, scaly or naked buds, and stalked alternate simple leaves with stipules. Flowers monœcious or diœcious, in ament-like spikes, or in heads on the outside of a receptacle or on the inside of a closed receptacle; calyx of the staminate flower 2—6-lobed or parted; stamens 1—4, inserted on the base of the calyx; calyx of the pistillate flower of 2—6 partly united sepals; ovary 1—2-celled; styles 1 or 2; ovule pendulous. Fruits drupaceous, inclosed in the thickened calyx of the flower and united into a compound fruit (syncarp). The Mulberry family is widely distributed with fifty-four genera confined largely to the warmer parts of the world. Three genera only, all arborescent, are indigenous in North America, although Broussonetia papyrifera Vent., the Paper Mulberry, a tree related to the Mulberry and a native of eastern Asia, and the Hop and the Hemp are more or less generally naturalized in the eastern and southern states.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN GENERA.
Flowers on the outside of the receptacle; buds scaly. Flowers in ament-like spikes; syncarp oblong and succulent.1. [Morus.] Staminate flowers racemose, the pistillate capitate; syncarp dry and globose.2. [Maclura.] Flowers on the inside of a closed receptacle; buds naked; syncarp subglobose to ovoid, succulent.3. [Ficus.]