When I was a wee lad, in southwestern Ontario, Canada for at least 8 years,
I remember being able to walk around the perimeter of a several acre tobacco field
at the edge of a 100 year old re-growth forest
and pick raspberries, black berries and Red Mulberries to my hearts content.
Today , basically no fruit bushes remain, a few barely fruiting raspberry bushes
can be seen.
I speculate this is due to a switch in chemicals the Tobacco farm used, and to top it
off, the constant eradication of colonies of bees in trees, such as one huge old half
rotten tree, with a super hive of honey bees. One day they torched it, and that
really resonates, plus sums up the time frame, when the berries disappeared.
according to the ministry of Ontario Canada :
http://www.pelee.org/i?page=speciesatrisk
Red Mulberry
Biology: Red mulberry (Morus rubra) is a small tree that reaches heights of only about 10 metres and often no more than 5 metres on the Island. The bark is reddish–brown and smooth in young trees, but flaky in mature trees. The coarsely toothed leaves may be either simple or lobed and the tops of the leaves are roughly textured, while the undersides are soft and fuzzy. The fruit is juicy and edible, and resembles a blackberry.
Status: Endangered Provincially and Nationally
Why at Risk: Red Mulberry reaches its northern range limits in Ontario and probably was never common here. At present, hybridization with the introduced white mulberry (Morus alba), a native of eastern Asia, poses the gravest threat to the survival of Red Mulberry stands in Ontario. At present very few populations of pure Red Mulberry remain. The species appears to have low reproductive success here, and damage by snails and slugs may hinder the establishment of new seedlings. Habitat destruction has resulted in the loss of a number of Red Mulberry populations and continues to be a threat.
