Personal Information You Choose to Provide.When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website. Note that only female plants have berries. Propagation Tips: Plants spread and reseed on their own. In addition wax myrtle is the larval host for the red-banded hairstreak. Brown Thrashers, White-eyed Vireos, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Palm Warblers, Eastern Bluebirds, and Gray Catbirds are some of the other species known to be attracted to the fruit. Tree Swallows also devour great quantities of wax myrtle fruit. Yellow-rumped Warblers, formerly known as Myrtle Warblers, have special digestive enzymes that break down the fruit's waxy coating. The waxy berries are a high-energy food source for birds in winter. ![]() The Wildlife Connection: Wax myrtles are wildlife-friendly. Essential allies in this ability to thrive on poor soils are root nodules of nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Elsewhere it occurs in highly acidic nutrient-poor pitcher-plant bogs. On the barrier islands of Virginia's eastern shore which offer few trees for nesting, large stands of mature wax myrtles have become rookeries for Great Blue Herons. It is relatively salt-tolerant, and grows in brackish margins of salt marshes on the Atlantic coast it is a dominant species in dune communities. Wax myrtle is tolerant of heavy soils, either wet or dry, open or wooded. The berries are covered with pale bluish-white wax long used to make bayberry candles. The "berries," actually drupes, appear on female plants only and persist through winter. The plants are dioecious, meaning either male or female, blooming February - March in our area. A sprig of wax myrtle in a drawer is reputed to keep cockroaches out. Because the aromatic compounds in the foliage were believed to repel insects, wax myrtle was commonly planted around homes to keep pests away. Aromatic when crushed, the dried leaves are used as a substitute for bay leaves for seasoning, and as a tea. They are glossy on the upper surface, duller underneath, with resinous glands on both. The 1.5- to 5-inch gray-green leaves are simple, alternate, with a few coarse teeth above the middle. ![]() It is an aromatic semi-evergreen small tree that normally matures between 6 and 20 feet tall. Chris Evans, River to River CWMA, ĭescription: ( by Don Gray) Southern wax myrtle is native to the coastal plains from Texas to Florida and north to New Jersey, occurring in a wide variety of sites from swamps to upland forests to stream banks and lakeshores.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |