394 CLASS XXII. ORDER IV. 



A branching shrub, about four or five feet in height. Leaves 

 alternate, lanceolate-wedge shaped, (their termination much 

 more obtuse than in the European variety,) serrated and nearly 

 smooth. Aments alternate, from the axils of the last year's 

 leaves, short, oblong-ovate. The fruit has a strong, penetrating, 

 spicy scent. — About the edges of Fresh pond. — April. 



Myrica Cf,ri1'Era. Bayhcrry. Wax Myrtle. 



American Medical Botany, PI. xliii. 



Leaves wedge-lanceolate, with a few serratures at 

 top; barren aments lax ; fruit spherical, naked, dis- 

 tinct. Mx\ 



The Wax Myrtle is found in dry soils, bearing fruit at every 

 size, from the height of one foot to that of six or eight. The 

 top is much branched, and covered with a greyish bark. The 

 leaves are wedge-lanceolate, varying in Avidth, sometimes entire, 

 but more frequently toothed, particularly toward the end. They 

 are somewhat pubescent, a little paler beneath, and generally 

 twisted or revolute in their mode of growth. They are inserted 

 in a scattered manner by short petioles. The flowers appear 

 in May before the leaves are fully expanded. The barren ones 

 grow in catkins, which are sessile, erect, about half or three 

 quarters of an inch long; originating from the sides of the last 

 year's twigs. Every flower is formed by a concave rhomboidal 

 scale, containing three or four pairs of roundish anthers on a 

 branched footstalk. The fertile flowers, which grow on a dif- 

 ferent shrub, are less than half the size of the barren ones, and 

 consist of narrower. scales, with each an ovate germ, and two 

 filiform styles. To these aments succeed clusters or aggrega- 

 tions of small globular fruits resembling berries, which are at 

 first green, but finally become nearly white. They consist of a 

 hard stone inclosing a dicotyledonous kernel. This stone is 

 studded on its outside with small, black grains resembling fine 

 gunpowder, over which is a crust of dry, white wax, fitted to 

 the grains, and giving the surface of the fruit a granulated ap- 

 pearance. Botanically speaking this fruit has been improperly 

 called a berry and a drupe ; since it is always dry and never 

 invested with a cuticle, or any thing but the grains and wax. 



