Myrica ceriferaL.

wax myrtle

WFO wfo-0000447382 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Myrica cerifera, photographed by Alan Weakley
fig. a Alan Weakley, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-07 / obs. 204228881
Myrica cerifera, photographed by Joseph Aubert
fig. b Joseph Aubert, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204551364
Myrica cerifera, photographed by Joseph Aubert
fig. c Joseph Aubert, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201311876
Myrica cerifera, photographed by Joseph Aubert
fig. d Joseph Aubert, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200399844
Myrica cerifera, photographed by Josiah Londerée
fig. e Josiah Londerée, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197946192
Myrica cerifera, photographed by Nonbinary-Naturalist
fig. f Nonbinary-Naturalist, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195768624
Myrica cerifera, photographed by Nonbinary-Naturalist
fig. g Nonbinary-Naturalist, CC0 1.0 / obs. 194909188
Myrica cerifera, photographed by Jade Fortnash
fig. h Jade Fortnash, CC0 1.0 / obs. 197867453

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 348 observations

Peak flowering in Mar, from 348 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 33 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Cerophora angustifolia Raf.
  • Cerophora inodora Raf.
  • Cerophora lanceolata Raf.
  • Cerophora spicans Raf.
  • Cerothamnus ceriferus (L.) Small
  • Cerothamnus pumilus (Michx.) Small
  • Lacistema alterum Spreng.
  • Lacistema berteroanum Schult.
  • Morella cerifera (L.) Small
  • Morella domingana (C.DC.) Carlquist
  • Morella pumila (Michx.) Small
  • Myrica altera C.DC.
  • Myrica apiculata Urb. & Ekman
  • Myrica cerifera var. angustifolia Aiton
  • Myrica cerifera var. arborescens Castigl.
  • Myrica cerifera var. arborescens Michx.
  • Myrica cerifera var. dubia A.Chev.
  • Myrica cerifera var. pumila Michx.
  • Myrica domingana C.DC.
  • Myrica jamaicensis R.A.Howard & Proctor
  • Myrica mexicana Humb. & Bonpl. ex Willd.
  • Myrica mexicana var. fastuosa A.Chev.
  • Myrica mexicana var. subglabra A.Chev.
  • Myrica microcarpa Benth.

and 9 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.