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 p-roduct is warmed before applying. 

 A word about candles, and this rambling chapter 

 may 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. Modem botanists make of the plants two 

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

 Mill. 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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