Black Persian

Black Persian, sold by Dave Wilson Nursery and others simply as Persian, is a true Morus nigra and represents the old-world black mulberry of Persian and Middle Eastern orchards rather than any American hybrid. Morus nigra is widely regarded as the best-flavoured of all mulberry species, and Black Persian is the cultivar most often used to make that case: the fruit is large, dense and darkly winey in a way that white and hybrid mulberries never quite manage. California Rare Fruit Growers describes it as bearing large black fruit over an inch long and almost as wide, juicy with a rich subacid flavour. The tree is comparatively small, slow-growing and extremely long-lived, forming a densely foliated crown of large heart-shaped leaves. It is a mild-winter cultivar and the least cold hardy of the mulberries commonly offered, which confines it to Zone 7 and warmer.