Mulberry，Silkworm and Silk
2 min readLooking at graceful silk textiles，you may not help asking:Where does silk come from？Now let’s go into this miraculous process.
Mulberry，Silkworm and Silk
An ancient poem goes:”Undomesticated silkworms eat green mulberry leaves and spin a cocoon by emitting silk filaments.”Silk comes from the mouth of silkworms，while silkworms live on mulberry trees.Our ancestors managed to domesticate silkworms as early as five thousand years ago，which were originally fed with agrestial mulberry trees，a woody perennial that was first planted the Shang and Zhou dynasties.Through selection and development over time，today there are three main species of mulberry trees，namely the Shandong mulberry，White mulberry and Mountain mulberry，while four main planting zones includes provinces of Jiangsu，Zhejiang，Sichuan and Guangdong.Before feeding silkworms，mulberry leaves must be dried and cleared up，and cut into different shapes for silkworms of different ages.
Silkworm has always been considered an auspicious creature since ancient time，and has been favorably called as”dragon prime”or”dear baby”.Nonetheless，the life of a silkworm is relatively short.Consisting of four different stages，namely the egg，larva，pupa and moth，its life span lasts for approximately 40 to 60 days.
Egg is the primary form of a silkworm，which is so puny that 1，700 to 2，000 eggs weigh only 1 gram.The newly hatched larva is called ant silkworm，as it is as black，tiny and fuzzy as an ant.Ant silkworms are able to eat mulberry leaves soon after their birth.But once in a while，silkworms would become inappetent or even stop eating.This stage is called”sleep”during which the motionless silkworm prepares for exuviating.Generally speaking，an ant silkworm need to exuviate four times before it is mature enough to spin the cocoon.The silkworm is then put onto straw mounts where the miraculous cocooning process takes place，and it takes 10 to 15 days for the pupa to turn into a moth.A1l these transformations in the life span of silkworm are described in a popular Chinese children’s song:”Miraculous silkworm，it looks like an ant when it is small，and changes into a white coated creature when it grows up.Then it produces thin and long silk filaments，and spins a beautiful cocoon.”
The liquid silk secreted by mature silkworms during cocooning turns into silkfilaments，which is praised as the”queen of fibre”，each with a length between 800-1000 metres.How incredible a silkworm is，to turn green mulberry leaves into silvery silk！
