(Part 1 of 2)Ever since Bermuda was first settled confusion has reigned over whether the mulberry trees on the Island were native: ie part of the pre-colonial woodland flora, or whether they were introduced from Europe after settlement only. Confusion arose for two reasons: the American and European mulberries are hard to tell apart, and records of the introduction of European mulberries to promote a silk culture date from as early as 1612.For most of my career I was a passive victim of that confusion, but in recent years three lines of evidence have converged to convince me that the red mulberry, Morus rubra, of America was, in fact, native and ought to have been included in my native woodland restoration projects on Nonsuch Island, Walsingham, and elsewhere right from their start in the 1960s to the early 1980s. That evidence is as follows:1. At least three members of the shipwrecked Sea Venture party left detailed accounts in which they specify that a mulberry tree with delicious fruit was common among the other trees found growing on Bermuda in 1610. From later accounts, published in John H Lefroy’s Memorials of the early settlement, it is evident that these trees, together with the strong silken webs of the native silk spider, (which were mistakenly confused with silkworms!), became the inspiration for starting a silkworm industry. Thus cuttings and seed of European black mulberry, Morus nigra, and white mulberry, Morus alba, were sent out as early as 1612-1616 and set the stage for the subsequent confusion.2. The red mulberry of America is a common associate of the southern hackberry on river floodplains and moist bottomlands of the southeastern United States. Like the hackberry, it’s seeds are primarily dispersed by birds, so it is a ready coloniser across water and a common element in the flora of spoil islands which are created by the dredging of the inland waterway along the Atlantic coast. The pioneering flora on those spoil islands contains many other species which were dominant in the original native flora of Bermuda such as the afore-mentioned hackberry, juniper, palmetto, wax myrtle and doc-bush. This is hardly surprising because a large part of Bermuda’s native flora was derived via birds, wind and ocean currents from the southeastern United States and the Bahama archipelago. Red mulberry seeds could well have been brought to Bermuda in the gut of birds, such as catbirds or robins, migrating from eastern North America to Bermuda in the fall, and deposited with a nice little bit of fertiliser.(To be continued)n Dr David Wingate is carrying out a study to determine which mulberry species grow in Bermuda and if the red mulberry is native to Bermuda. If you have a mulberry tree on your property, please contact David Wingate by email: davidb.wingate@gmail.com. Mulberry trees have coarsely toothed, often lobed, glossy green leaves. The fruit are one to two inches long, resembling raspberries, and turn purplish-black when ripe. Mulberries, in Bermuda, bear fruit in the spring and in the fall.