Medium to tall tree to 60 feet. Bark red-brown, ridged. Leaves overall broadly egg-shaped, but often with deep lobes on the sides. Leaf edges coarsely toothed. Leaves sandpapery above, hairy below. Flowers are catkins in the late spring. Fruits start green, turn red and then red-black. They resemble blackberries and are tasty to humans, squirrels, and birds.

Native, but sometimes cultivated for its fruits. Rare in Wildwood. The one illustrated grows in the woods north of the Great South Meadow and south of the South Bridge. A lovely specimen near the Grand Staircase was cut down to protect powerlines.

The alien white and paper mulberries have similar leaves, but fruits that are whitish (white) or reddish (paper) and rather tasteless. Neither has yet been reported in the Park.