Readers will be familiar with the domesticated silkworm, Bombyx mori, munching mulberry leaves, and only mulberry leaves, and obligingly spinning the fine thread that has dressed the rich for millennia. But how many of you know about alternative, wild sources of silk? Quite a few, perhaps, if you’ve been following us for a while and your memory is better than mine.
Because, as it turns out, though I’d totally forgotten about it, we’ve blogged about this a few times before. I linked to silk-making in the drylands of Mwingi in Kenya back in 2007, which I followed up the following year. And Jeremy also chipped in, twice in fact.1 Wild silk was one of our most popular topics at the time, if comments are anything to go by.
Anyway, this trip into the archives was prompted by a recent piece in The Hindu about how the Central Sericultural Germplasm Resource Centre (CSGRC) in Hosur has been teaching students at the Forest College and Research Institute of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University all about non-mulberry sericulture. Apparently as part of the “exploration of opportunities for integrating forest-based silk production into forestry ecosystems.”
The best introduction to the beauty and diversity of wild silks I’ve found is the website of the Florida Museum’s wonderful collection. But no doubt there are other useful resources out there on this fascinating subject.