CANDLEBERRY MYRTLE. 
Natural Order , Myriceje, (Richard.) Linnsean Classifi- 
cation, DkECIA, TeTRANDRIA to OcTANDRIA. 
MYRICA, Linn., (in part.) 
Flowers unisexual; those of the two sexes upon the same or 
more commonly upon different plants. Male flowers in cylin- 
drical sessile catkins; each flower with 4 to 8 stamens, with 
the filaments elongated and more or less united at the base; 
the stamens exserted beyond the borders of the dilated short 
scale, many stamens in branching clusters nearly without 
scales at the summit of the catkin; bracteoles none in either 
sex. Female flowers in loose, sometimes filiform catkins, 
with many of the lower scales abortive; scales 1 -flowered, 
the germ naked. Styles 2, very long, linear, and acuminate, 
ovary villous. Drupe 1 -seeded, spherical, coated with a gru- 
mose waxy pulp. Nut very hard; seed erect; embryo without 
albumen, the radicle superior. Cotyledons thick and oily. 
A genus wholly distinct from Myrica Gale , which is common 
to northern Europe and North America. The character of lunate 
scales given to Myrica by Linnaeus applies only to the Gale, 
which therefore constitutes a genus by that name. The rest of our 
species belong to Myrica. In the Gale, the fruit is a small ovate 
dry nut, with an indurated bracte on either side of it, giving it 
the appearance of being 3-lobed. 
The species of this genus are few; natives of the warmer and 
colder zones of both hemispheres, growing generally near the 
sea coast, and are chiefly shrubs, with alternate persistent, or 
annual simple leaves, usually more or less serrated, or pinnatifid, 
and besprinkled with aromatic resinous scales, as are also the 
scales of the buds. Catkins axillary, expanding early in the 
