Myrica gale
Common name: 
Sweetgale
Sweet Gale
Bog Myrtle
Meadow Fern
Pronunciation: 
mi-RI-ka GAH-lee
Family: 
Myricaceae
Genus: 
Type: 
Broadleaf
Native to (or naturalized in) Oregon: 
Yes
  • Broadleaf deciduous bushy shrub, ascending branches, 3-6 ft (0.9-1.8 m) tall, suckering, spreads slowly.  Leaves alternate, simple, narrow obovate, 2-6 cm long, thin, toothed near apex, tapering to the base, gray-green above, paler below, sweet fragrance, yellowish resin droplets visible on both surfaces, especially below.  Dioecious (male and female plants), flowers small, in greenish-yellow, waxy catkins; male flowers crowded in stalkless catkins 7-15 mm long, female flowers three pointed, in dense catkins 8-10 mm long.  Fruit a small pointed nutlet, 3 mm long, greenish-yellow to brown, in brown, cone-like spikes, dotted with resin, persist in winter.
  • Sun to part shade.  Does well in moist, acidic soils.
  • Hardy to USDA Zone 2      Native to the Northern Hemisphere, especially more northerly areas, from North America, Europe (abundant in Scottish moors and bogs), and Japan.  In the Pacific Northwest it is found from Alaska to Oregon, and in the latter west of the Cascades and near the coast.
  • gale: from the Old English name of this plants, gagel.
Click image to enlarge
  • in bog habitat

    in bog habitat

  • plant habit

    plant habit

  • shoots, leaves

    shoots, leaves

  • leaves

    leaves

  • catkin

    catkin