SHRUBS 525 



ber of stamens, an anther sessile on each lobe, opening by a 

 round slit. Pistillate tlowers, with a 2-parted calyx. Fruit, a 

 ileshy, ovoid berry. 



Named after a Russian botanist. 



121. Bayberry. Waxberry 



Myrica Carolinensis. — Fatnil}\ Bayberry. Color, of catkins, 

 green. Leaves, inversely lance-shaped, narrow at base, toothed 

 above, shining, stiff, pleasantly fragrant, 2 to 4 inches long. 

 lime. May. 



A familiar shrub, found along the coast from Nova Scotia to 

 Florida. The 2 kinds of flowers are in separate catkins, each 

 with a bract and second pair of bractlets. The pretty leaves have 

 a pleasant fragrance, owing to resinous drops on both sides. The 

 nut-like fruit bears grains of wax, which used to be collected by 

 country people, melted down and burned as candles. 



Sandy soil, near the sea-shore ; also found in bogs in New Jersey 

 and Pennsylvania. 



122, Sweet Gale 



M. Gale has greenish flowers in catkins, which appear in 

 early spring, before the long, narrow, obtuse, wedge-shaped, 

 mostly entire leaves. 



A fragrant, woody, tenacious shrub, 4 or 5 feet high, with bark 

 something like black birch, often small-dotted. The stiff, hard 

 heads of nuts formed from the fertile catkins of flowers might be 

 tiny pine cones. Each nutlet, under the magnifying-glass, shows 

 3 points, 2 being made from "scales" which cover the seed from 

 the base. Small resinous bits of wax (seen only under the glass) 

 dot the nutlets. The cones, i inch long, are crowded together on 

 the fruiting branch. A shrub of the sw^amps from Maine to Vir- 

 ginia. 



Robert Beverly, in Hisiory of Virginia (published 1705), states 

 that "at the mouths of their rivers, and all along upon the sea 

 and bay, and near many of their creeks and swamps, the myrtle 

 grows, bearing a berry of which they make a hard, brittle wax of 



