bayberries

Noun

bayberry (plural bayberries)

1. (Canada, US) The fruit of the wax myrtle shrub; or the plant itself (Morella cerifera), with aromatic, leathery leaves and waxy berries.
   • It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
   1. (Canada, US) Other species in the family Myricaceae, especially in genus Myrica; bay-rum tree, candleberry.
      • The two North American genera are Myrica (bayberry) and Comptonia (sweet-fern).2002, James Fralish, Scott Franklin, Taxonomy and Ecology of Woody Plants in North American Forests, Myricaceae (Bayberry or Wax-Myrtle Family), page 230
2. The fruit of the bay laurel (Laurus nobilis).
   • [T]heir shape was much like a Figg, but very much smaller, some being about the bigness of a Bay-berry, others, and the biggest, of a Hazel-Nut.1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographica, section XLIII
3. West Indian bay tree (Pimenta racemosa), a tropical American shrub with aromatic leaves that are used in the preparation of bay rum.