Uses
The berries can be used to make bayberry wax candles. American colonists boiled the berries to extract the sweet-smelling wax, which they used to make clean-burning candles.References:
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Northern bayberry
Myrica pensylvanica
''Myrica pensylvanica'', the northern bayberry, is a species of ''Myrica'' native to eastern North America, from Newfoundland west to Ontario and Ohio, and south to North Carolina. It is also classified as ''Morella pensylvanica''.
''Myrica pensylvanica'' is a deciduous shrub growing to 4.5 m tall. The leaves are 2.5–7 cm long and 1.5-2.7 cm broad, broadest near the leaf apex, serrate, and sticky with a spicy scent when crushed. The flowers are borne in catkins 3–18 mm long, in range of colors from green to red. The fruit is a wrinkled berry 3-5.5 mm diameter, with a pale blue-purple waxy coating; they are an important food for yellow-rumped warblers.
This species has root nodules containing nitrogen-fixing microorganisms, allowing it to grow in relatively poor soils.
''Myrica pensylvanica'' is a deciduous shrub growing to 4.5 m tall. The leaves are 2.5–7 cm long and 1.5-2.7 cm broad, broadest near the leaf apex, serrate, and sticky with a spicy scent when crushed. The flowers are borne in catkins 3–18 mm long, in range of colors from green to red. The fruit is a wrinkled berry 3-5.5 mm diameter, with a pale blue-purple waxy coating; they are an important food for yellow-rumped warblers.
This species has root nodules containing nitrogen-fixing microorganisms, allowing it to grow in relatively poor soils.
