Northern Bayberry (Myrica pensylvanica)
With our nitrogen-poor, acidic, sandy soil, one of the more successful native shrubs on Cape Cod is northern bayberry (Myrica pensylvanica). It is found in habitats ranging from sand dunes, to open forests, to the edges of bogs and marshes, and can tolerate a wide range of moisture. Despite its commonness, for someone new to plant identification, this can be either a very difficult or very easy plant to identify. On the difficult end of the scale, when I was…