Broussonetia foliis tri-vel quinque-lobis, acutis, serratis, supra scabris, subtus pubescentibus.
Broussonetia with leaves from 3-to 5-lobed, pointed, sawed, rough on the upper surface, and softly haired beneath.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
Male Plant.
1. An empalement and chives, in an infant state.
2. The same magnified.
3. An empalement and chives in perfection.
4. The same magnified.
Female Plant.
1. The catkin with a pointal detached.
2. A section of the same when in fruit.
3. One of the florets with the seed detached.
4. A seed cut in two, and magnified.
This useful plant is the Morus papyrifera of Linnæus, but certainly would not have been so called by him, had both, the male and female plant come under his inspection, as it does not belong either to the class or order of the Mulberry. Neither of the plants, when in bloom, possesses much beauty, but they have rather a sombre aspect: yet the female plant, when in fruit, is certainly very handsome. In Japan and the South Sea Islands, where it is indigenous, the bark of it serves to make a clothing for the natives. In Japan, it not only makes cloth for them, but all the Japanese paper is made from the bark of it. There are four sorts. The first is a royal size, of a square form, very smooth, and painted on one side. The second is a fine letter paper, in sheets often three feet long. The third is used for covering their best varnished articles, and so fine as sometimes to look like a spider’s web. The fourth is a common writing-paper, varying in size and form. The process of its manufacture is by cutting off the shoots after the leaves fall, and boiling them till the bark separates. It is then peeled off, and steeped 3 or 4 hours in water, to purify, and the black outer cuticle, and green matter within, are scraped off and separated, according to their qualities. It is again boiled with a little ashes, and stirred with a bamboo stick; and the boiling is complete when its downy fibres can be separated with a touch of the finger. It is then agitated in water till it appears like a lump of tow, and again beat with camphor wood battens, and strained, for the coarser paper. An infusion of the roots of the Hibiscus manihot, or the leaves of Rivaria Japonica, with the flour of Japan rice, is then mixed with it, and poured on their moulds; which are not, like ours, formed of wire, but of fine rushes, and the sheets laid on a matted table with a fine shred of bamboo between each, and covered by a board with a stone upon it, to squeeze out the water, dried the next day singly on flat boards, and then packed up for sale.
Our figure was made from fine plants in the garden of J. Vere, esq.[Pg 113]
