4.^ 



top, small, sessile, smooth, rather stiff, nearly cordate, toothed, 

 bluntly poii)ted, and covered on the under surface with impressed 

 resinous dots. Flowers forming catkins m the axils of the 

 branches and on the stem ; 7nale catkins spiked ; scales ovate, 

 concave, fringed ; female catkins ovate, solitary. Fruit berry or 

 drupe round, of the size of a 5 gr. pill, and covered with a white 

 "vvaxy crust. 



11. MYPJCA SERRATA. LAMK. 



Shrubby. 2 to 3 feet high. Branches striped, pubescent. 

 Leaves alternate, oblong-lanceolate, attenuated into leaf-stalks, 

 downy, unequally jagged on the margins, green above, and 

 covered beneath w^ith numerous yellow dots. Catkins axillary ; 

 scales ovate, pointed. Drupe smaller as in the preceding species. 



III. MYRICA QUERCIFOLIA.* LIN". 



Shrubby. Stem 2 — 4 feet high, erect. Branches spreading in 

 whorls, curved, downy. Leaves alternate, obovate-oblong, blunt, 

 attenuated at base, smooth, slashed, about one inch long, bearing 

 resinous dots on the lower surface. Lnflovescence as in the former 

 species. Fruit rather small. 



Myrica Cordifolia and Myrica Serrata have been figured and 

 imperfectly described by J. Burmann, t from drawings made 

 by order of Governor S. van dkr Stell, but not the slightest 

 mention is made of their utility, or peculiarity in yielding wax. 

 The first and principle information -with regard to the usefulness 

 of the waxberry myrtle in the Cape colony, is contained in a 

 letter addressed to the Revd. Mr. A. Buurt, at Amsterdam, by 

 the Revd. J. F. Bode, then minister of the Dutch Reformed 

 Church in Cape Town, and of which the following is a faithful 

 translation : — 



"Cabo, March 1, 1777. 



'•Reverend Sir,— By this opportunity I send you a small box con- 

 taining three sea-plants, with which, I hope, y()U Avill be pleased, and 

 a small branch covered with white berries. This is a slirub that grows 

 on the sandy hills or downs, between the Cape and Slellenbosch, and 

 whose fi uit, when boiled in water, furnishes a beautiful wax. 



" I have, I believe, transmit ted to you some years ago a specimen of 

 this wax, which however, has turned out to be of greenish lint. 



" This shrub has been taken little notice of hitherto, or rather 

 neglected, but in October and November last, some persons commenced 



* BIyrica Laciniata, Willd. is nothing but a variety of this species. 



t Rariorura Africanarum plautarum decades 10. i\mstcrd. 1739. 4to, pag. 

 262— 2G3. Tab. 98, fig. 1 and 3. 



