Morella cordifolia
(L.) Killick
Myrica, Wax berry, Candle berry
MyricaceaeFruit
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(c) Craig Peter, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Craig Peter
(c) Craig Peter, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Craig Peter
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(c) Tony Rebelo, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), uploaded by Tony Rebelo
(c) Tony Rebelo, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), uploaded by Tony Rebelo
iNaturalist · cc-by-sa
(c) Tony Rebelo, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), uploaded by Tony Rebelo
(c) Tony Rebelo, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), uploaded by Tony Rebelo
What to Eat
Edible parts: Fruit - wax
The fruit are edible and contain a waxy coating.
Where to Find It
It is a subtropical plant. It grows in loose sand. It grows in coastal sand dunes.
Africa, South Africa, Southern Africa,
Countries: Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Benin, Botswana, Congo (DRC), Central African Republic, Congo (Republic), Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Algeria, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Gambia, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Comoros, Liberia, Lesotho, Libya, Morocco, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan, Sao Tome & Principe, Eswatini, Chad, Togo, Tunisia, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe
How to Identify
A spreading shrub. It sends out slender branches that lie along the ground. These have upright shoots that reach 2-3 m tall. The leaves are small and shiny. They are heart shaped and have teeth along the edge. They do not have stalks and overlap along the branches. Male and female flowers are on separate plants. The male flowers are in dense catkin like clusters along the stem. The female flowers occur singly and are usually lower down. The fruit are purple blue berries 5-8 mm across.
Names & Synonyms
Ilethi
Myrica cordifolia L.
References (7)
- East African Herbarium records, 1981, (As Myrica cordifolia)
- Fox, F. W. & Young, M. E. N., 1982, Food from the Veld. Delta Books. p 274 (As Myrica cordifolia)
- Hedrick, U.P., 1919, (Ed.), Sturtevant's edible plants of the world. p 429 (As Myrica cordifolia)
- Peters, C. R., O'Brien, E. M., and Drummond, R.B., 1992, Edible Wild plants of Sub-saharan Africa. Kew. p 153 (As Myrica cordifolia)
- Petersen, L. M., et al, 2012, Development of a Compendium of Local, Wild-Harvested Species Used in the Informal Economy Trade, Cape Town, South Africa. Ecology and Society 17(2):26
- Ruiters-Welcome, A. K., 2019, Food plants of southern Africa. Ph.D. thesis. Univ. of Johannesburg p 80
- Welcome, A. K. & Van Wyk, B.-E., 2019, An inventory and analysis of the food plants of southern Africa. South African Journal of Botany 122 (2019) 136–179
