Broussonetia

Another name for tapa cloth tree (Broussonetia papyrifera) is paper mulberry. Ancient Austronesian peoples used the inner bark of tapa cloth tree to make clothing, a practice that continues among some Pacific peoples. This inner bark is also used to make high-quality paper in China and Japan.

Small paper mulberry are a genus of trees that have been utilized for various commercial uses. The fiber of the inner bark has traditionally been used to make textiles and paper in Asia, and its wood has also been used in making furniture and utensils. Paper mulberry (B. papyrifera) is the most common species, which is planted both as an ornamental tree and harvested for making barkcloth in the Pacific Islands.

The tree height is about 2 to 5 m. The branches are slightly vine but the stems are upright. The leaves alternate with each other have a petiole of about 5 to 10 mm in length and have soft hair. The leaf shape is distorted oval to wide oval sometimes deeply split into 2-3 pieces like mulberry leaves. The length of the leaf blade is 4 to 10 cm the width is 2 to 5 cm the base is a distorted circle or sharp shape and the tip is long and sharp in a tail shape. The edges of the leaves have blunt saw teeth short hairs on the surface and coarse hairs on the back veins. In spring the flowering season is a hermaphroditic with a male inflorescence in the lower leaf bud of the new branch and a female inflorescence in the upper leaf bud. The male inflorescence is spherical with a diameter of about 1 cm the female inflorescence is spherical with a diameter of about 4 mm. The fruiting period is summer with red ripe spherical fruits with a diameter of about 1.5 cm.