Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1884 — The Myrtle. [ARTICLE]

The Myrtle.

This beautiful plant is a native of Persia,“but naturalized in the south of Europe, being now abundant on the sea coast from Marseilles to Genoa and throughout Italy. The leaves of the myrtle are of a rich dark-green tint. They are covered with clear dots, which secrete a highly fragrant volatile oil. The flower has active-clef calix, five white petals, numerous stamens, and one style which is succeeded by a globuse berry of two to three cells. A woody texture belongs to all the myrtle tribe; but fhey .yary in habits from that which spreads over the soil in the Falkland Islands, as the thyme does in Europe, to the immense eucalypti of Australia, which are among the most gigantic trees of that continent. The common myrtle, in its usual size and height, gives us, however,, a good idea of the average size of the majority of the myrtaceae. Some myrtles in the vicinity of London have heen known as trained plants to reach a height of ten to twenty feet, and an equal width. • At Cobham Hall, in Kent, are several specimens thirty feet high. The myrtle cannot, however, be considered as more than a half-hardy shrub in Great Britan. It was introduced into England in the sixteenth century; Gerard knew the myrtle in as early as 1597. Pliny informs us that it was a rare slant in Italy in his day; he, however, makes mention of eleven sorts, and remarks that the most odoriferous grew in Egypt. In the United States the Myrtle is usually treated as a pot plant, or, when large, grown in tubs, for removal into the cellar on approach of ■winter. De Candolle’s arrangement of the kinds of Myrtle is considered the best. According to that there are two species, viz.: 1, M. Melanocarpa or black-fruited, common in gardens, where are varieties of it with double flowers and variegated foliage, and also embracing the broad-leaved or Boman Myrtle, the box-leaved, the upright or Italian, the orange-leaved, the acute-leaved or Portugal, the broad-leaved Dutch, and the thyme-leaved myrtles; and 2, the white-berried, M. Leucocarpa, native of Greece and the Balearic lsles, the fruit of which is rather large, edible, with a grateful smell and taste. There are several striped-leaved sorts known in Europe, of much beauty. All the varieties propagate readily by cuttings and from seeds. The cuttings should be stuck in sand, or peat.and sand, and covered in the process with a bell glass. The Myrtle was well known to the ancients, and was held in high esteem for its beauty, supposed virtues, and medicinal qualities. It was employed as a symbol of authority, and entwined with laurel for wreaths in the triumphs of bloodless victory and of the Olympic and other games. The buds and berries were used as spices, and the latter are still employed in Tuscany as a substitute for pepper. A wine made from the Myrtle-was called myrtidainun. In Greece tle berries are administered to little children for treatment of diarrhoea. The eau d’ange, a sort of perfume sold in France, is distilled from the flowers. Medicinal qualities reside in the astringent nature of the various portions of the plant; and in Greece, Italy, and the South of France the bark is used in tanning. There are are some other species occasionally met with in collections, such as M. Tomentosa, a native of China, with rose-colored flowers, and M. Myrsimoides, a native of the colder parts of Peru. The Order of myrtleworts (myrtacese) is of much interest, embracing as it does the pomegranate, the guava, »the clove, the pimento or all-spice, and many trees producing valuable gums and important astringents.