How did settlers use wax myrtle?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

October 27, 2003

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Southern bayberry or wax myrtle (Myrica cerifera Linnaeus) is a large evergreen shrub native to the southern and eastern coasts of the U.S. Depending upon the authority, there are four to six species in North America and possibly fifty species worldwide. The southern bayberry was a source of fragrant wax. Although it was never 'official' in the U.S. Pharmacopeia, the plant supplied eclectic materia medica--medicines used by some doctors
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Handmade Candles Drying, Charles Towne Landing Historical Site, Settlement in South Carolina Buy Photographic Print at AllPosters.com

and in home remedies.

Charles Millspaugh wrote that the extraction of myrtle wax for making candles was first reported in Louisiana. In 1722, the water in which wax had been 'tried' (extracted) was further boiled and used to treat cases of violent 'typhoid' dysentery among the Louisiana colonists. This may well have been associated with the devastating hurricane that leveled French New Orleans and most of southern Louisiana that year.

Myrtle water is astringent (drying) and was probably a last-ditch effort to cure the dysentery. It has unpleasant side effects--dizziness, headaches, burning pain in the eyes and nasal passages, dry throat, sensation of hunger, distension and cramping of the abdomen, nausea, chills, fever, depression, and "very offensive flatus".

Women Rendering Lard in a Kettle to Make Soap the Old-Fashioned Way
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The bark from myrtle roots was chewed for toothache, sore mouth, and bleeding gums. Extracted as an infusion or tea, it was gargled for sore throats or applied topically to "itches". The powdered root bark was applied to hemorrhages, sores, and skin ulcers.

Soap made from myrtle wax was considered gentle compared to common lye soap. Country doctors used myrtle soap for 'soap plasters' where a topical medication was kept on the skin, or the plaster used to support or immobilize an injury. Soap plasters could be softened and easily removed by soaking in water.

Men also preferred myrtle over traditional lye soap. Millspaugh declared, "Soap from this wax makes an aromatic and very softening shaving lather...." ("Myrica", American Medicinal Plants, Charles F. Millspaugh, 1892, reprinted 1974, Dover Publications)

Plant of the Week, October 27, 2003

Wax Myrtle (Myrica cerifera Linnaeus)
The southern bayberry, candleberry, or wax myrtle (Myrica cerifera Linnaeus) is native to the coastal plain from eastern Texas across to Florida and north to New Jersey. Wax myrtle is a large shrub with aromatic foliage often growing in thickets at the edge of moist to wet woodlands. It is closely related to the northern bayberry (Myrica caroliniensis Miller). Bayberries have long been a source of wax. Plant of the Week, October 27, 2003

Myrtle wax candles and soap were vital to many early American settlers who had to literally live off the land. To learn more about the extraction of myrtle wax, a labor-intensive task, go to the Plant of the Week, October 27, 2003:

http://www.killerplants.com/plant-of-the-week/20031027.asp

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