Wild Mulberries? Seems to good to be true?!

Hello - was wondering if anyone would be willing to identify these - they seem like mulberries.  They taste slightly sweet and a bit crunchy and meally.  They're all over the western suburbs of Chicago right now.  Some trees are 20'+ tall with 1000s of berries.  

No one (humans or otherwise) seem to be eating them - or at least can keep up with eating them, which I find puzzling?  When we had pear and peach trees, there were always bees, etc eating them all day.

I don't know exactly where to look online to identify completely, though I just used the Bing auto identifier and it said Mora aka Mulberry.

Thanks and best wishes!

Yes....mulberries.  The riper and darker they get, the sweeter they are.
They can be (mealy) because the stem runs right through the fruit. I love them, my grandkids love them.  My chickens really love them.  What's not to love?

When I was growing up "no one" ate mulberries.  I mean absolutely no one. When I first saw them the trees were loaded and the berries were all over the ground.  My mother said I could not eat them as they had worms in them.

Since I have never eaten any I can say if they have worms, though I have my doubts.

I thought they were lovely trees when the fruitless mulberries became popular.

Thanks bery much Anne and Ralph! Going to pick some now will watch out for worms and stems!

I have a tree loaded with fruits like that too. I picked 2 lbs the other day, simply gleaned along the branches with a big bowl underneath. I don't see any worm and just eat them whole including the stems. Tasty treats!

Enjoy your mulberries!

Yes, this is a mulberry. Please make sure you have a proper identification before eating any plant. Some environments have few poisonous plants, others a lot. Past my warning, you can easily propagate those by stem cuttings. They root very easily.

Interesting note.
Can't find the source but I read that Mulberries are in the hemp family.
 According to my Peterson field guide to edible wild plants:
"Warning: Unripe fruit and raw shoots contain hallucinogens."

I've also read the sap contains the mirror image THC too.

Anne Miller wrote:When I was growing up "no one" ate mulberries.  I mean absolutely no one. When I first saw them the trees were loaded and the berries were all over the ground.  My mother said I could not eat them as they had worms in them.

My grandparents had mulberry trees and said the same thing when I was a kid. They just made a massive mess and were ultimately cut down to keep the yard clean. Since then I've eaten many, many pounds of mulberries and wondered why nobody would eat them when I was younger (this week I taught my mother to identify mulberry trees and got her eating some we found on our walk).

in my area, if you let them get very ripe on the plant, mulberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc, will all have some degree of worms in them. fruit flies. they don’t change the flavor any! i will accept the small addition of protein to my berry feast.