USEFUL WILD PLANTS 



insect in small reddish masses upon the twig-bark, 

 from which it is readly scraped. The Panamint 

 Indians, to quote Coville, improve its effectiveness 

 by mixing with it pulverized rock, and pounding all 

 together. The product is warmed before applying. 

 A word about candles, and this rambling chapter 

 mav close. A common source of wax for candle- 

 making in old times, and still not altogether for- 

 gotten, is a shrub or small tree indigenous from 

 Nova Scotia to Florida and Alabama, with resinous, 

 fragrant leaves, and bluish-white, waxen berries, 

 strung upon the branches and persisting through the 

 winter. Modern botanists make of the plants two 

 species — Myrica cerifera, L., and M. Carolinensis, 

 IMill. They are called rather indiscriminately in 

 common speech, Waxberry, Bayberry, or Candle- 

 berry. The little round berries may be gathered in 

 the autumn, boiled in a pot of water, and the wax, 

 which floats to the surface, skimmed off. This hard- 

 ens into a cloudy green mass, which, Peter Kalm tells 

 us, it was customary in his day to melt over again 

 and refine into a transparent green. Candles were 

 moulded from this, either pure or mixed with some 

 common tallow. Bayberry wax burns with a rather 

 pleasant fragrance, and perhaps you have found such 

 candles among your Christmas gifts. 



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