Bayberry, Or Wax Myrtle (Myrica Cerifera, Linn.), a low, crooked shrub, 3 to 8 feet high, growing in extensive patches or in thick clusters on every variety of soil, usually near the seacoast, throughout the United States. The bayberry is typical of the natural order myri-eacem of Lindley, related to the birches, but distinguished chiefly by the 1-celled ovary, with a single erect, straight ovule, and the drupe-like nut. This order embraces three or four genera, shrubs or small trees covered with resinous dots and glands, and alternate, simple leaves, with or without stipules, indigenous to North and South America, the Cape of Good Hope, and India. Their flowers are dioecious, amentacious, naked; the stamens 2 to 8, generally in the axil of a scaly bract; anthers 2 to 4-celled, opening lengthwise; ovary 1-celled, ovule solitary; stigmas 2, subulate or else pe-taloid; fruit drupaceous; seeds solitary, erect, the embryo exalbuminous. The bayberry has an irregular, crooked, seldom erect stem, which gives off rough branches in clusters; the bark brownish gray, sprinkled with round or oblong white dots; the leaves irregularly scattered, often in tufts, nearly sessile, obovate lance-shaped, abruptly pointed, cuneate at base, wavy, slightly serrate and revolute at the edge, yellowish beneath.

The flowers appear in April and May, the barren ones in short, stiff, erect catkins, having loose, rhomboidal scales containing each 3 or 4 stamens; the fertile flowers are much smaller and occur on a different plant, the scales imbricated, oval, pointed, each containing an ovary with 2 subulate stigmas. The fertile ament ripens into a branch of 4 to 9 dry berries, which are covered with rounded waxy particles, giving out, as well as the entire plant, a fragrant and balsamic odor. This species is especially prized for its wax (see Wax), but seems to be held in more esteem in Europe than in America; and in certain parts of France it has become perfectly acclimated. - Other species of myrica are known as the fragrant gales, of which a familiar example is M. gale (Linn.), a dark-colored bush 2 to 5 feet high, having wedge or lance-shaped, scarcely serrated, fragrant leaves, and stiff brown-scaled aments appearing in April, and found in inundated places. A southern species, (M. inodora, Bartram), a shrub with whitish bark and perennial, coriaceous, oblong, obtuse, entire leaves, sparingly dotted, is found on the margin of swamps near the seacoast of Florida. The sweet fern ( Comptonia asplenifolia, Aiton), a very common plant in old and neglected pastures throughout the United States, also belongs to the order myricacece. - The medicinal qualities of the order are astringent and tonic, as in the sweet fern, which is employed in diarrhoea, while in its aromatic bark reside both benzoic and tannic acids combined with a resinous matter.

The roots of the bayberry are reputed emetic and drastic. The sweet gale has been used as a vermifuge, and its leaves employed in brewing; it affords a yellow dye, and its stems and branches are used in tanning.

Bayberry (Myrica cerifera).