Morella inodora (W. Bartram) Small

Odorless Bayberry; Odorless Wax Myrtle

Shrub

Perennial

Vascular

Odorless Bayberry is a native evergreen shrub in the Bayberry family (Myricaceae). It can be found in the southernmost counties of Alabama. Odorless Bayberry occurs in bogs, in low pine savannas, and in bayheads. It is an evergreen shrub up to 23 feet in height, though it is usually much shorter. The young branches are green or reddish in color and dotted with whitish glands. The bark on the trunk and older branches is smoothish and gray-brown in color. Leaves are alternate, petiolate, obovate to elliptic in outline, with entire or few-toothed margins. The leaves are slightly revolute, glabrous or with a few scattered hairs, and gland-dotted on both surfaces. They lack an odor when crushed. Odorless Bayberry is dioecious with male and female flowers on separate plants. Male flowers are produced in erect catkins in the early spring. The flowers are produced from leaf axils on wood of the previous season’s growth. Female flowers are produced on short side branches. The fruit is a globose, warty drupe that is black or dark gray in color with a thin coating of whitish wax. The fruit are consumed by birds.—A. Diamond.

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Native

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