THE BOG MYRTLE— continued. 
Dodoens’s Herbal, the Rhus sylvestris of earlier writers. These substances also make 
it burn well, and Gerard says of it : — 
“ This gaule groweth plentifully in sundry places of England, as in the Isle of Elie, and in the Fennie countries thereabouts, 
whereof there is such store in that country, that they make fagots of it and sheaves, which they cal Gaule sheaves, to burne and 
heate their ovens.” 
The leaves are generally, as in our species, scattered, simple, serrate, leathery, 
exstipulate, and fragrant when bruised, or when the sun is hot, from the resinous 
glands with which they are dotted. Opinions differ as to whether such aromatic 
smells are pleasant or not, so that, whilst our species is commonly known as “ Sweet 
Gale ” and “ Sweet Willow ” and the plant is known in France as “ Bois-sent-bon,” jt 
is also known as “ Stinking Willow.” The leaves are used as a substitute for hops 
* in Sweden and in Yorkshire, and furnish a medicinal tea in rustic medicine, whilst 
Parkinson speaks of them as being formerly 
“ much used to be laid in Wardrobes, Chests, Presses, and the like, to keepe mothes from garments, and woollen cloathes as also 
to give them a good sent.” 
Though the name Myrica appears in Greek as pvpcKr], murike, for the Tamarisk, 
it is probably connected, as is the name Myrtle (/xvpros, murtos ), with pvpov , muron , 
perfume. 
The flowers are produced before the leaves, from May to July, and are some- 
times monoecious though generally dioecious. The catkins form in the leaf-axils in 
summer and reach their full size by March, their scales being a shining red-brown 
and both anthers and styles red. Each staminate flower consists of four stamens in 
the axil of a bract. The powdery pollen is held between the catkin-scales until 
shaken out by wind. The spherical ovary is covered with resinous projections and 
surmounted by a bifurcating style ; and the small drupe which it forms becomes two- 
winged by the adhesion of the bract in the axil of which it is borne. The fruits 
excrete a considerable quantity of wax, which is separated by boiling them in water. 
M.cerifera L. thus obtained the name “Candle-berry Myrtle” in Canada and the United 
States, and M. cordifolia L. has been similarly employed in South Africa. The fruits 
of a Chinese species are eaten under the name “ Yang-maes.” 
Few plants are more characteristic of stagnant water in boggy ground than is 
the Sweet Gale or Bog Myrtle. In Devonshire, swampy ground is termed “ galey,” 
and some moors in the west are known as “ gale-moors.” Upland moors, wet heaths, 
reed-swamps, and the “ carr,” or woodland formed on the margin of the fen, alike 
find it a home, and it is sometimes the dominant social species over considerable 
areas. It is, perhaps, more characteristic of acid than of alkaline peats, associated, as 
it is, with Alder, Cotton-sedges, Sphagnum-moss, Sundews, and such plants. 
