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Photographed by: Chelsie Vandaveer
Credits: Photographed in Hillsborough County, Florida
Other Information: Olympus C-4000 zoom
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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.
The wax myrtle flowers on old wood; clusters of berry-like drupes follow. When ripe, the drupes turn powdery gray. The thin gray pericarp surrounding the seed contains the high quality wax. In the past, these 'berries' were rendered to extract the wax or 'bayberry tallow' for candles and soap. In American Medicinal Plants, Charles F. Millspaugh cited a French author, Toscan, who observed and described the process of wax extraction.
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"Towards the end of autumn, when the berries are ripe, a man leaves his house, together with his family, to go to some island or bank near the seashore where the wax-trees grow in abundance. He carries with him vessels to boil the berries, and a hatchet to build a cottage where he may find shelter during his residence in this place, which is usually three to four weeks. While he cuts down trees [for shelter] his children gather the berries. A very fertile shrub will afford nearly seven pounds. When these are gathered the whole family employ themselves in procuring the wax. They throw a certain quantity of the berries into the kettle, and then pour a sufficient quantity of water on them so as to cover them to a depth of about a half a foot. They then boil the whole, stirring the grains about and rubbing them against the sides of the vessel in order that the wax may more easily come off. In a short time it floats on the water like fat, and is collected with a spoon and strained through a coarse cloth to separate it from any impurities which might be mixed with it. When no more wax can be obtained they take the berries out with a skimmer and put others into the same water, but it must be entirely changed the second or third time, and in the meantime boiling water must be added as it evaporates, in order to avoid retarding the operation. When a considerable quantity of wax has been obtained by this means, it is lain on a cloth to drain off the water with which it is still mixed. It is then melted a second time, and it is then formed into masses. Four pounds of berries yield about one of wax; that which is first obtained is generally yellow; but in later boilings it assumes a green color for the pellicle (pericarp) with which the kernel of the berry is covered." (From L'Ami de la Nature by Toscan, cited by Millspaugh)
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Millspaugh added that "Candles made from this wax, though quite brittle, are less greasy in warm weather, of fine appearance, slightly aromatic, and smokeless after snuffing, rendering them much more pleasant to use than those made of either wax (paraffin) or tallow (animal fat)." (American Medicinal Plants, Charles F. Millspaugh, 1892, reprinted by Dover Publications, NY, 1974)
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