We have this mysterious tree in our backyard that my husband affectionally calls "the weed tree" because it seemed to get much bigger much faster than any other tree in our yard. Somehow between this spring and last spring it's become a huge tree while we weren't looking.
Over the years I've been curious what kind of tree this us but I've never been able to find out. Every spring it gets white berries on it that look like raspberries.
There are tons and tons berries and to be honest it's kind of annoying- they fall all over and make a big mess. The berries are constantly falling so you can't walk under it until they're gone without getting bonked on the head (you can imagine how the picture taking went). The birds love to eat the berries which is nice... but I guess that also causes another problem since we don't have a garage to put the car in.
This year I started the search again- and I've found enough pictures online to suggest it's a mulberry tree. At first I thought that was kind of cool- that's a useful berry right? I've never eaten one but thought I've heard of mulberry jam and muffins before. From the pictures I found I was pretty sure it was a mulberry tree but was hesitant to try a berry from a plant or tree I wasn't 100% sure about.
Then I started to read more about mulberries and found some articles saying if you eat unripe berries they can make you sick and even make you hallucinate.
I wish I knew if this was really a mulberry and if so- if it's really true that the berries can make you sick.
I love Mulberries! ... I haven't had any hallucinations ... yes, they grow quite fast!
ReplyDeleteDid you ever have any luck finding out for sure if it was a mulberry tree? I found your post trying to find out what some berries I had while traveling in Turkey were called, they look exactly like these, and I ate quite a few, very tasty and no bad reactions. :)
ReplyDeleteYes it is a mulberry. We've had a few of the berries with no reaction either : ) they taste very watery and a little bit sweet. I've since seen these berries dried in the grocery store- I haven't tried them dried but gives me an idea of how we could use some of them.
ReplyDelete