Some of the pleasant fragrance in the air lately has come from China Berry trees in flower. Of course Japanese honeysuckle is in bloom now too,contributing fragrance, which may be the single redeeming virtue of that plant. But China berries, the beloved tree of my youth, wafts out fragrance calling me back. I used the large ridged seed to make necklaces and enhanced the color with food coloring. The smaller branches had pithy insides which could be easily pushed out to make the barrel of a pop gun and the seed were used for the ammo. There were several in my grandmother's yard, so there was always a ready supply. The adults as a general rule did not like China Berry trees as they are quite messy, continually dropping twigs, berries, and leaves, which had to be swept up everyday. This was in a time when people had bare dirt yards, kept that way with a hoe to dispose of any blade of grass or weed that tried to rear its head. The yards were swept weekly with a yard broom or brush broom. My grandmother had white sand in her yard, and the marks the brush broom made in the sand are still vivid in my memory. I hated to walk over the newly swept yard and would try to go around the edges till someone else had smeared the lines with footprints. Occasionally I would deliberately walk on the swept surface and look back to admire the prints of my bare feet. I wonder where she got that sand because it was definitely a top layer. Once I remember hearing her request someone to get some sand for the yard and then at some point when she was too old to do sweeping or even supervise,some one made the decision to plant grass. It was thought that grass would be less trouble. Ha! Both of these yard management techniques for yards require preposterous amounts of work. I was saddened at the though of the loss of that lovely white sand yard.
Aunt Thelma lived across the road from Granny and right near the road she had a paper mulberry tree. At the time I remember it, it leaned at a precarious angle but it had a fork fairly low so that I spent happy hours dangling in the fork of that tree and thinking my own thoughts and playing with the fuzzy leaves. (Be careful and don't rub them on yourself too much or you will start to itch!) Then the inevitable happened, and the weather laid the old mulberry over just as gently as you please. With the loss of that tree, Aunt Thelma began a search for an Umbrella China Berry tree. Only a small fraction of China Berry trees are this type. Most have a scraggly growth habit that could only charm a child. However, she did eventually did find one and planted it in place of the mulberry. It lived many years and was a beautiful tree. Both paper mulberry and China Berry trees are weak trees and often topple or split so that they do not live long. Thankfully they produce enough offspring that there are usually a few around.
The Umbrella Chinaberry is a different strain of the common one. I remember riding looking for one in someone's yard, so we could stop and ask for a sprout for Aunt Thelma. In those days there were no plant nurseries that I knew of. People got their yard plants from the wild, or through pass-along plants primarily. For years I knew the location of every one along the roads I traveled and would report back to Aunt Thelma even after she secured one of her own. They are lovely trees and I think they may not seed as readily as the more scraggly ones. At least there are none around now that I am aware of.
Both chinaberry and paper mulberry are imports from the East but have been here in Southeast Alabama so long that I think most people think of them as natives. Some places both trees are considered invasive, but in my estimation, we have far worse invasives- wisteria,climbing fern, popcorn tree,and kudzu just to begin a list.
