Note: Information is dated. Do not rely on it.

Candleberry, Candleberry Myrtle, Wax Myrtle, etc. A shrub, growing from four to eighteen feet high, and common in North America, where candles are made from its drupes or berries, which are about the size of peppercorns, and covered with a greenish-white wax popularly known as Bayberry tallow. The wax is collected by boiling the drupes in water and skimming off the surface. A bushel of berries yields from four to five pounds of wax. Another plant belonging to the same genus is the sweetgale, which grows abundantly in bogs and marshes in Scotland - a small shrub, with leaves somewhat like the myrtle or willow, of a fragrant odor and bitter taste, and yielding an essential oil by distillation.

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