268. MYRICA CERIFEEA BAYBERRY. 41 



or with filaments united into a sort of stipe; ovary inferior, 1-celled, with single erect 

 orthotropous ovules, styles two filiform, stigmatose along the inner sides. Fruit, drupace- 

 ous, often waxy-coated and containing a single exalbuminous seed. 



GENUS MYKICA, LINNEAUS. 



Leaves alternate, evergreen or deciduous, resinous-dotted, irregularly dentate or lobed 

 (rarely entire) pinnately veined, without stipules or stipules falling away early. Flowers 

 monoecious or dioecious in aments which form in the summer in the axils of the leaves of 

 the year (the staminate from axils below those producing the pistillate when both are 

 borne on the same plant), and remaining over winter open the next spring, the small, 

 naked flowers appearing in the axils of the scales of the ament. Staminate aments oblong- 

 cylindrical, dense; stamens 2 to 16 at the base of the scale, subtended by two or more 

 scale-like bractlets; filaments free or united at base into a sort of stipe, anthers erect, 

 ovate, 2-celled, longitudinally dehiscent. Pistillate flowers in ovoid aments; ovary sessile, 

 styles forked, stigmatic on inner faces. Fruit a small subglobose drupe with exocarp 

 generally papillose and covered with a waxy exudation, endocarp thick and hard, seed 

 erect, exalbuminous with straight embryo. 



Genus composed of small trees and shrubs, mostly of temperate and warmer climates, 

 several of them being of considerable economic importance, mainly from the yield of wax 

 which is exuded from the surface of the fruit. 



(Myrica is the ancient Greek name of some kind of shrub, thought to be the Tamarisk, 

 transferred to this species.) 



268. MYRICA CERIFERA, L. 



WAX MYRTLE. BAYBERRY. CANDLEBERRY. 

 Ger., Wachsbaum. Fr., drier. Sp., Arayan de Cera. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS : Leaves oblong-lanceolate to oblanceolate, 1 %-5 in. long, 

 cuneate at base and decurrent on the short petiole, acute, remotely serrate chiefly above the 

 middle or entire, dark green above and paler beneath, fragrant with yellow resin glands. 

 Flowers (March-April) dioecious; staminate aments %-% in. long, cylindric; stamena 

 few; pistillate aments oblong, shorter than the staminate. Fruit globose drupes, % in. 

 or less in diameter, coated with bluish white wax and tipped with base of style, ripening 

 in early autumn and long persisting. 



The Wax Myrtle is a shrub or small tree occasionally 40 ft. (12 m.) in 

 height, and 10 or 12 in. (0.25 m.) in thickness of trunk. This is often 

 crooked or leaning, and in the forests of the low regions in the vicinity of 

 the coasts it is found in clusters or small groups. The bark of trunk is 

 smooth and of a mottled, light gray color. Over a large part of its range it 

 is only a shrub in stature and habit of growth. 



HABITAT. In arborescent form the wax myrtle is confined to swamps 

 and low-lands of the coast region from southern Maryland to Florida; 

 thence westward into Texas and northward in Lower Mississippi valley into- 



