Myrica inodora W.Bartram – scentless bayberry.Myrica hartwegii S.Watson – Sierra bayberry.Myrica chevalieri (Parra-Os.) Christenh.They can be dried and stored in jars to be used as a spice. The leaves can add flavor to soups and broths. Myrica is used to spice beer and snaps in Denmark. The fruit of Myrica rubra is an economically important crop in China, sold fresh, dried, canned, for juice, for flavoring in snacks, and for alcoholic beverages. Several species are also grown as ornamental plants in gardens. The foliage of Myrica gale is a traditional insect repellent, used by campers to keep biting insects out of tents. It was used for that purpose by the Robinson family in the novel The Swiss Family Robinson. The wax coating on the fruit of several species, known as bayberry wax, has been used traditionally to make candles. American pioneers sniffed the powder to counter nasal congestion. The root bark was pounded into powder and mixed with water to cure diarrhea. Native Americans used bayberry medicinally. paroptila and the Coleophora case-bearers C. Myrica species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including brown-tail, emperor moth, and winter moth as well as the bucculatricid leaf-miners Bucculatrix cidarella, B. The seeds are then dispersed in the droppings of the birds. As the wax is very energy-rich, this enables the yellow-rumped warbler to winter farther north in cooler climates than any other American warbler if bayberries are present. The wax coating on the fruit is indigestible for most birds, but a few species have adapted to be able to eat it, notably the yellow-rumped warbler and tree swallow in North America. Myrica faya ( Morella faya), native to the volcanic islands of the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands, has become an invasive species on the Hawaiian volcanoes where it was introduced in the 19th century its ability to fix nitrogen makes it very well adapted to growing on low-nitrogen volcanic soils. The remaining species all have relatively small ranges, and are mostly warm-temperate. The type species, Myrica gale, is holarctic in distribution, growing in acidic peat bogs throughout the colder parts of the Northern Hemisphere it is a deciduous shrub growing to 1 m tall. The fruit is a small drupe, usually with a wax coating. The flowers are catkins, with male and female catkins usually on separate plants ( dioecious). The leaves are spirally arranged, simple, 2–12 cm ( 13⁄ 16– 4 + 3⁄ 4 in) long, oblanceolate with a tapered base and broader tip, and a crinkled or finely toothed margin. The roots have nitrogen-fixing bacteria which enable the plants to grow on soils that are very poor in nitrogen content. The species vary from 1 m (3 ft 3 in) shrubs up to 20 m (66 ft) trees some are deciduous, but the majority of species are evergreen. The generic name was derived from the Greek word μυρίκη ( myrike), meaning "fragrance". Ĭommon names include bayberry, bay-rum tree, candleberry, sweet gale, and wax-myrtle. Some botanists split the genus into two genera on the basis of the catkin and fruit structure, restricting Myrica to a few species, and treating the others in Morella. The genus has a wide distribution, including Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America, and missing only from Australia. Myrica / m ɪ ˈ r aɪ k ə/ is a genus of about 35–50 species of small trees and shrubs in the family Myricaceae, order Fagales.
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