Tasty Leaves of Morus Alba and Beautiful Silk
Silkworms feast on the leaves of white mulberry trees, creating a luxurious silk. Learn the historical and cultural significance of the production of silk throughout the world.
BRIT Collections
Botanical Research Institute of Texas | Fort Worth Botanic Garden
Morus alba specimen
Mulberry silk is one of the most luxurious and sought-after textiles in human history. The silk is made by the silkworm Bombyx mori, which eats the leaves of white mulberry trees (Morus alba).
Bombyx mori Moth
Bombyx is the genus of “true silk moths” or “mulberry silk moths,” which contains eight currently identified species. The Bombyx genus was first named by Carl Linnaeus in Systema Naturae, 10th Edition (1758).
Bombyx mori Moth
Initially, silk was made by the wild silk moth, Bombyx mandarina. Eventually a domesticated species became the most common to use. This species, Bombyx mori, is named after the genus of the mulberry tree on which it feeds, Morus.
Plant specimen (2013-06-04) by Biswarup GangulyBRIT Collections
Silk cocoons made by Bombyx mori
After feasting on the white mulberry leaves, the silkworm caterpillar wraps itself in a cocoon of fluid that hardens into silk. The cocoon creates one single thread that can be up to 3,000 feet or 914 meters long.
Plant specimen by Carington BowlesBRIT Collections
Gathering mulberry leaves to feed the silk worms
Silkworms and white mulberry trees are native to China, where they were first used in silk production over 5,000 years ago. The practice of silk production is called sericulture, and it was a closely guarded secret in China for thousands of years.
Eventually, Chinese immigrants took the silkworm and the white mulberry to Korea, after which the secrets of sericulture spread throughout the Byzantine Empire in the 6th Century B.C.E.
Plant specimen (2010-05-27) by NASA/Goddard Space Flight CenterBRIT Collections
The Silk Road
The Silk Road brought silk and mulberry trees to Western countries, who then tried to cultivate silk on their own, with varying success.
Red lines indicate land routes. Blue lines indicate ocean/sea routes.
Antique silk carpet from Qum, Iran
Iran is synonymous with using luxurious silk to make finely-knotted carpets, which are valuable and highly sought after worldwide.
Cold climate
The English nursery rhyme “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush” may be a reference to England’s attempt to grow Morus alba and produce silk, which proved fruitless in the country’s cold climate.
Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush.
Here we go round the mulberry bush
On a cold and frosty morning.
Story created by Alyssa Kosyaem, Philecology Herbarium, Botanical Research Institute of Texas and Fort Worth Botanic Garden.
References:
Cell Press. "Why Silkworms Find Mulberries Attractive." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 May 2009. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090507121951.htm.
Clay, K. 2001. "Bombyx mori." Animal Diversity Web. https://www.animaldiversity.org/accounts/Bombyx_mori/
Engelhardt, G. P. (1907). SILKWORM CULTURE. The Museum News (Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences), 3(1), 9–11. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26461026
Rowland, T. “Turning Leaves Into Silk.” Santa Barbara Independent. 12 March 2010. https://www.independent.com/2010/03/12/turning-leaves-into-silk/
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