mulberry bush

[Wilson Gray]

On 4/18/05, neil <neil at typog.co.uk> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       neil <neil at TYPOG.CO.UK>
> Subject:      mulberry bush
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm aware (in the UK) of the gooseberry bush (under) as source of babies
> when answering inquisitive children, but where does the mulberry bush
> originate?
>
> I know the children's rhyme 'Here we go round the mulberry bush', but the
> citation below implies that a mulberry bush is the source of illegitimate
> offspring. Am I correct, and is it American?
>
> "She says she's been married but Carolyn [...]. These artist types, well.
> [...] Even if she did have the kid under a mulberry bush, it doesn't make
> him any the less of a good kid, right?"
> --Katherine V. Forrest, 'An emergence of green', Silver Moon Books, London,
> 1990, 128
>
> --Neil Crawford
>

Don't mulberries grow on trees? In Texas and in California, they do.
And they don't taste particularly good, IMO. I'm familiar with "Here
we go 'round the mulberry bush." Is there more than one kind of
mulberry, one that grows on bushes? "Having a child under a mulberry"
is brand-new to me.

-Wilson Gray