Mulberry, Red

Morus rubra. Red compound berries, near black when ripe. If mites abound in your region, the berries must be soaked and rinsed in water so as to remove the mites. Crop is harvested by spreading sheets under the tree and knocking them down, an odd-looking activity, I suppose. Ethnobotanists are currently debating whether M. rubra is native to the U.S.A. or whether Zheng He's visiting Chinese fleet introduced it in A.D. 1421.