🔴 Invasive - Remove
Paper Mulberry
Broussonetia papyrifera
This is an invasive species that harms native ecosystems. It should be removed when found to protect local plant and wildlife habitats.
Broussonetia papyrifera
This is an invasive species that harms native ecosystems. It should be removed when found to protect local plant and wildlife habitats.
A small tree with fuzzy, variably lobed leaves (mitten-shaped, three-lobed and unlobed on the same branch), grey-tan blotchy bark, and orange-red ball-shaped fruit. It spreads by root suckers into dense clonal thickets along edges and disturbed ground.
Native to: East Asia
Introduced in the 1700s as a fast-growing ornamental and shade tree; its bark is the traditional source of Japanese and Pacific bark paper.
Forms thickets of suckers that crowd out native shrubs and tree seedlings. Shallow roots make mature trees prone to blowing over in storms, opening yet more disturbed ground for the suckers to fill.
Colour and texture: Very variable on one tree: some leaves plain and heart-shaped, some with one or two mitten lobes. Sandpaper-rough on top, velvety-soft underneath, and the twigs are hairy with milky sap.
Leaves: alternate to nearly opposite, 3–8 inches, rough and hairy on top, velvety underneath, with a mix of lobed and unlobed shapes on one tree.
Twigs: hairy; milky sap when cut.
Bark: grey with tan blotches and shallow ridges.
Fruit: round, orange-red, an inch across, in summer, on female trees only.
Fruit June–August.
Round, fuzzy orange-red balls about an inch across, soft and messy when they drop.
Why it matters: The fruit is the easiest summer ID, and the stained ground under a tree will lead you to a parent you had not noticed.
A woody crown too big to pull and too stubborn to cut: wineberry, multiflora rose, barberry, bush honeysuckle, tree seedlings.
Avoid: Do not clamp halfway up the stem. It snaps, and the crown stays in the ground and re-sprouts.
It can stay on site. Pulled saplings can stay, roots shaken clean and piled off the soil so they cannot re-root.
Red mulberry, our native, has glossy dark green leaves that are rough on top but only slightly hairy below, and dark purple fruit. Paper mulberry leaves are dull grey-green and velvety underneath, and its fruit is orange. White mulberry is also non-native — see its own page.
Before the first cut: Seedlings and saplings only. A cut mature tree suckers everywhere; leave it and tell the coordinator.
Pull seedlings, wrench saplings, leave the trees.