Morus wittiorum Hand.-Mazz.

The leaves provide food for silkworms and the bark fibers are used for making textiles and paper.

Trees or shrubs, 4-12 m tall, deciduous; dioecious. Bark grayish white, smooth. Branchlets pale brown, conspicuously lenticellate. Winter buds ovoid. Stipules narrowly ovate, ca. 4 mm. Petiole 1.5-3.5 cm, shallowly grooved; leaf blade oblong to broadly elliptic, 8-12 × 5-9 cm, papery, glabrous or young leaves abaxially with short soft hairs along midvein and lateral veins, abaxially pale green, adaxially green, base rounded to broadly truncate, margin subentire or toothed toward apex only, apex acuminate; basal lateral veins 3 pairs, extending to 1/2 of leaf blade length, secondary veins 3 or 4 on each side of midvein. Male catkins axillary; peduncle short. Female catkins 9-15 cm; peduncle 2-3 cm. Male flowers: calyx lobes green, ± orbicular. Female flowers: sessile; calyx lobes yellowish green, imbricate; ovary 1-loculed; style very short; stigma 2-branched. Syncarp cylindric, 10-16 cm; achenes ovoid. Fl. Apr-May, fr. May-Jun.

Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan.

* Forested slopes, beside streams; 900-1400 m.

Morus jinpingensis S. S. Chang.