(Myri. Cer.) Botanical Name : Myrica Cerifera Linn. Family
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MYRICA CERIFERA (Myri. cer.) Botanical name : Myrica cerifera Linn. Family: Myricaceae Common names : English: Wax-myrtle; French: Arbre a’suif; German: Wachsbaum. Description : A slender tree; bark grey, nearly smooth. Leaves narrow, oblong or oblanceolate, mostly acute at the apex, entire or sparingly dentate, narrowest or somewhat cuneate at the base, fragrant when crushed, short petioled, dark green above, paler and sometimes pubescent beneath, golden- resinous, unfolding with or before the aments; staminate aments cylindrical, pistillate aments; shortly oblong; ripe drupes separated, globose, bluish-white, waxy, less than 2.5 cm in diameter, tipped with minute base of style, bracts and bractlets deciduous. Macroscopical : Bark in pieces of varying length and breadth; usually 2.5 cm or less in length rarely upto 5 mm broad; outer surface either silver-grey, reddish- brown or greyish-brown, scaly in rhizome and root barks, bearing occasional warts or slight ridges; fracture short, weak and uneven; fractured surface brown with short projecting fibres near or along inner border of root bark. Microscopical : Cork of several layers, irregular, brick-shaped cells, which vary in staining capacity. Many have highly suberised walls but some have all walls lignified, while other shows lignification only on their inner walls. Phellogen of meristmetic cells usually collapsed. Secondary cortex cells are tangentially elongated and smallest in outer most portions, becoming larger as 1 passed towards phloem. Inner layers show numerous air spaces. Endodermis is like those of adjacent cortex. Phloems are comparatively broad zone of irregular phloem patches, medullary rays, often broaden out towards the cortex in fan-shaped fashion. Habitat : Along the Atlantic Coast from Florida northward. Found in sandy soils and near the seashore. In the South, it is a small evergreen tree, in New Jersy a tall semi-deciduous tree and in the north small dwarf and deciduous. History and authority : Introduced in Homoeopathy after the proving were published in Trans. Mass. Hom. Med. Soc. II, 397 in 1864. Allen’s Encyclop. Mat. Med. Vol. VI, 432. Part used : The bark of the root. Preparation : (a) Mother Tincture φ Drug strength 1/10 Myrica Cerifera in coarse powder 100 g Purified Water 233 ml Strong Alcohol 797 ml to make one thousand millilitres of the Mother Tincture. (b) Potencies: 2x to contain one part tincture, two parts Purified Water and seven parts Strong Alcohol. 3x and higher with Dispensing Alcohol. Old method : Class III .