MYRICACEZ, 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
87 
MYRICA CERIFERA. 
Wax Myrtle. 
Leaves oblong-spatulate, usually acute or rarely rounded at the apex, mostly 
coarsely serrate above the middle, yellow-green, coated below with conspicuous orange- 
colored glands. 
Myrica cerifera, Linneus, Spec. 1024 (excl. var. £) 
(1753). — Miller, Dict. ed. 8, No. 2. — Muenchhausen, 
Hausv. v. 207. — Wangenheim, Beschreib. Nordam. Holz. 
148; Nordam. Holz. 101. — Marshall, Arbust. Am. 94. — 
Moench, Béume Weiss. 64; Meth. 362. — Burgsdorf, 
Anleit. Anpfl. 153. — Walter, Fl. Car. 242. — Willde- 
now, Berl. Baumz. 199; Spec. iv. pt. ii. 745; Enum. 
1011. — Borkhausen, Handb. Forstbot. i. 527. — Persoon, 
Syn. ii. 614. — Desfontaines, Hist. Arb. ii. 472. — Du 
Mont de Courset, Bot. Cult. ed. 2, vi. 404. — Pursh, F7. 
Am. Sept. ii. 620. — Rafinesque, Fl. Ludovic. 116. — 
Nuttall, Gen. ii. 235; Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. n. ser. v. 
167. — Hayne, Dendr. Fl. 197. — Elliott, Sk. ii. 678. — 
Poiret, Lam. Dict. Ill. iii. 402, t. 809. — Sprengel, Syst. 
i. 493. — Jaume St. Hilaire, Traité des Arbres, ii. t. 106. — 
Loudon, Arb. Brit. iv. 2057 (excl. var. latifolia). — Die- 
trich, Syn. i. 551.— Spach, Hist. Vég. xi. 263. — Chap- 
man, Fl. 426 (excl. var. media). — Curtis, Rep. Geolog. 
Surv. N. Car. 1860, iii. 106. —C. de Candolle, Prodr. 
xvi. pt. ii. 148 (in part). — K. Koch, Dendr. ii. pt. i. 663 
(in part).— Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census 
U. S. ix. 136 (in part); Garden and Forest, vii. 474, f. 
75. — Lauche, Deutsche Dendr. ed. 2, 312.— Watson & 
Coulter, Gray’s Man. ed. 6, 470 (in part). — Dippel, 
Handb. Laubholzk. ii. 313 (in part). — Koehne, Deutsche 
Dendr. 77 (in part). — Urban, Bot. Jahrb. xv. 357. 
Myrica cerifera, 8, Lamarck, Dict. ii. 592 (1786). 
Myrica cerifera, a angustifolia, Aiton, Hort. Kew. iii. 
396 (1789). —C. de Candolle, Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 149. 
Myrica cerifera, a arborescens, Castiglioni, Viag. negli 
Stati Uniti, ii. 302 (1790). — Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Am. ii. 
228. 
Lacistema Berterianum, Schultes, Roemer & Schultes 
Syst. Mant. i. 66 (1822). 
Lacistema alternum, Sprengel, Syst. i. 124 (1825). 
Myrica heterophylla, Rafinesque, Alsograph. Am. 9 
(1838). 
Cerophora lanceolata, Rafinesque, Alsograph. Am. 11 
(1838). 
Myrica Carolinensis, A. Richard, FZ. Cub. iii. 231 (not 
Miller) (1853). 
Myrica microcarpa, Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 177 (in 
part) (not Bentham) (1864); Cat. Pl. Cub. 69. —C. de 
Candolle, Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 149 (in part). 
? Myrica microcarpa, 8 angustifolia, C. de Candolle, 
Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 149 (1864). 
Myrica altera, C. de Candolle, Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 595 
(1868). 
A tree, occasionally forty feet in height, with a tall trunk eight or ten inches in diameter, and 
slender upright or slightly spreading branches which form a narrow round-topped head; generally 
smaller, frequently sending up from the ground numerous stems, and sometimes reduced to a shrub 
from four or five inches to two or three feet in height. 
inch thick, with a smooth close light gray surface. 
The bark of the trunk is about a quarter of an 
The branchlets are slender, and marked with small 
pale lenticels, and when they first appear are coated with loose rufous tomentum and caducous orange- 
colored glands; gradually losing their tomentum during the summer, they are bright red-brown or dark 
brown tinged with red or gray, usually lustrous, and nearly glabrous during their first winter, and then 
become dark brown. The leaf-buds are oblong, acute, from a sixteenth to an eighth of an inch 
long, and covered with numerous ovate acute loosely imbricated scales ; in expanding their inner scales 
lengthen with the young branch, often becoming nearly half an inch long, and do not fall until it is 
nearly fully grown. The leaves are lanceolate-cuneate or oblong-lanceolate, acute or rarely gradually 
narrowed and rounded at the apex, cuneate at the base, decurrent on short stout petioles, and fur- 
nished above the middle with a few coarse teeth, or sometimes entire; when they unfold they are 
coated with bright orange-colored glands, and at maturity are thick and firm in texture, yellow-green, 
and covered above by minute dark glands, and below by bright orange-colored glands, from an inch 
