34 MYRICA CERIFERA. 
concave rhomboidal scale, containing three or 
four pairs of roundish anthers en a branched 
footstalk. . The fertile flowers, which grow on a 
different shrub, are less than half the size of the 
barren ones, and consist of narrower scales, with 
each an ovate germ, and two filiform styles. 
To these aments succeed clusters or aggre- 
gations of small globular fruits resembling berries, 
which are at first green, but finally become nearly 
white. ‘They consist of a hard stone inclosing a 
dicotyledonous kernel. This stone is studded on 
its outside with small black grains resembling 
fine gun-powder, over which is a crust of dry 
white wax, fitted to the grains and giving the 
surface of the fruit a granulated appearance. 
Botanically speaking, this fruit has been im- 
properly called a berry, and a drupe; since it is 
always dry and never invested with a cuticle, or 
any thing but the grains and wax. 7 | 
Every young part of the Wax myrtle had, a 
fragrant, balsamic smell, which it communicates 
to the fingers when rubbed by them. ‘This 
appears to be derived from a resinous exudation, 
which may be seen in minute points of a bright 
transparent yellow, covering the young shoots 
and under surface of the leayes. In the berries 
this resinous substance is within the wax. 
