Wax Myrtle

Once you start looking for wax myrtle around Lake Martin, you’ll see it all over. It’s a small, very useful tree – or maybe a large shrub – that smells like bayberry. And in fact, this plant is sometimes called southern bayberry.

Wax myrtle is native to North America – along the coastal states from New Jersey south to Florida and west to Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma, as well as Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America. This is a very versatile plant, able to grow in wet soils around water and in dry hilly areas … and even sand dunes, upland forests and pine barrens. It can handle high winds and salt spray and is evergreen in USDA zones 7-10. (Lake Martin is Zone 8A.)