TEGETABLE WAX. 295 



Both waxes are strained of adherent water, re-melted separately, 

 purified by straining through clothes, and cast into cakes. 



It congeals into a concrete substance of agreeable odour and 

 rather harder and more brittle than bees' wax. It is somewhat 

 diaphanous, slighty heavier than bees' wax, of about the same 

 weight as water when cold, but slightly lighter when melted. It 

 is insoluble in water ; scarcely soluble in cold alcohol ; soluble with 

 the exception of 13 per cent, in 20 parts of boiling alcohol, which 

 deposits the greater part on cooling. It is soluble also in boiling 

 ether and slightly so in oil of turpentine. The green colour, as 

 well as the bitter taste, depends on distinct principles, which may 

 be separated by boiling the wax with ether, and allowing the 

 liquid to cool. The wax is deposited colourless, while the ether 

 remains green. 



Myrtle wax burns with a peculiar clear white flame, producing 

 little smoke and durino; the combustion emits an airreeable 

 aromatic odour. Its analysis proves it to be almost identical 

 in composition with the wax of the berries of the Sweet Gale, 

 the only difference being that it contains 0-5 per cent, more of 

 resin. 



The Myrtle wax from Xew Jersey is^ yellow, more granulated 

 and unctuous to the feel, bearing a o-reater resemblance to bees' 

 wax, and has much less astringency than that procured from Xew 

 England. Possibly it is produced from a variety of J/. Gale and 

 not from M. cerifera, or it may be the wax obtained by simply 

 scalding the berries, and not boiling them. 



Of the genus Myrica, or " Wax berry," there are five species and 

 two varieties which are indigenous in South Africa.* : — 



1. M. JEthiopica. — Leaves elliptic, serrate towards the point, 



at the base entire ; met with both on stiff' and light 

 soils, and most frequently in rocky situations, t 



2. M. Serrata. — Leaves lanceolate, attenuated towards the 



point, sharply serrate, tomentose : catkin bisexual, 

 scales egg-shaped, pointed. Generally on level 

 ground, and common on all descriptions of soil.;|: 



3. M. ciuercifolia. — Leaves oblong, bluntly- waved margin ; the 



* Harvey, S. Afr. Gen., p. 309. 



t Plnnkenet's Phytograpliia, t. 48, f. 5. 



X Figured in Burnianni variorum Africanum Plantarum, Decades 10. 



