Myrrh
Commiphora myrrha
Myrrh begins inside a rather unassuming tree in some very dry country. Cut or damage the bark of Commiphora myrrhaand a sticky exudate appears, pale and soft at first before the heat and air begin changing it. Eventually it hardens into the amber, yellow brown and reddish pieces familiar from jars of dried myrrh.
Break one open and it becomes considerably harder to overlook. The scent is warm, resinous and earthy, with a bitterness that separates myrrh quite readily from frankincense. People noticed that resin thousands of years ago. They valued it enough to carry it far beyond the thorny scrub where the trees themselves grew.
Classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Family: Burseraceae
Genus: Commiphora
Species: Commiphora myrrha
Common Names: Myrrh, Myrrh Tree
At Home Among Thorns & Stones
Commiphora myrrha is native to northeastern Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. Somalia and Ethiopia are particularly important parts of its range, with the species also occurring in Kenya and parts of Arabia.
This is dry, often rocky country where rainfall can be scarce and strongly seasonal. Myrrh grows among scrub and thorn woodland without requiring the deep, rich soil we might ordinarily imagine supporting a valuable botanical.
The tree itself is usually somewhere between two and five metres tall, with irregular thorny branches rising from a short trunk. Its pale grey to silvery bark can look almost washed out against the landscape. Leaves appear when moisture allows and may be shed again as drought returns. A sparse looking tree during the dry period can change considerably after rain.
Small flowers are followed by fruit, with insects visiting the flowers and animals potentially helping to disperse the seeds. Much of the rhythm of the tree follows the arrival and disappearance of water.
When the Bark Weeps
Myrrh can seep from places where the bark has been damaged naturally, but harvesting encourages the process through deliberate cuts. The tree responds by releasing a sticky material around the wound.
Fresh myrrh doesn't look much like the contents of an apothecary jar. It's relatively pale and soft enough to flow. Left in hot, dry air, the surface begins to harden and the colour deepens. Eventually the material can be collected as irregular tears and chunks.
We usually call myrrh a resin, although oleo-gum-resin is more precise. It contains resinous material alongside water soluble gums and volatile aromatic compounds, all contributing to the way it behaves and smells.
A tree can only be cut so many times without consequence. Repeated or excessive tapping can damage living Commiphora, making the method and intensity of harvesting part of the story rather than something that happens invisibly before the resin reaches us.
Bitter Enough to Name
The name myrrh ultimately traces back through ancient languages to a Semitic root associated with bitterness. It's an unusually practical name for something that accumulated so much ceremony around it.
The bitterness is real. So is the smell, which is much easier to encounter deliberately. Breaking or warming the dried resin releases a warm, earthy aroma that can carry smoky, woody and medicinal impressions depending on the material and how it's used.
Individual pieces aren't especially uniform either. Some are golden brown and slightly translucent at thinner edges, while others deepen towards red brown or become almost opaque. Bits of bark and other plant material sometimes remain caught in the resin.
For something usually sold by the handful, each piece retains quite a lot of evidence that it came from a tree.
A Resin Worth the Journey
Myrrh was valuable enough in the ancient world to travel from northeastern Africa and Arabia into Egypt and across Mediterranean trade networks. Dried resin lends itself rather well to travelling. Once hardened, a botanical material produced in a remote dry landscape could survive a journey of considerable distance.
Ancient Egyptians used aromatic resins in incense, perfumery and funerary preparations. Greek and Roman writers also described valuable aromatics arriving from Arabia and Africa, and myrrh could be burned, incorporated into fragrant preparations or used within traditional botanical practices.
Its religious life continued well beyond antiquity. Myrrh appears within Jewish and Christian traditions and remains an incense material in some religious settings today. Perfumery found reasons to keep it too.
By the time a piece reached a distant market, it had already passed through a much longer chain of harvesting and trade. The tree itself stayed behind.
Old Travelling Companions
Myrrh and frankincense have spent so much of their history together that separating them can feel slightly unnatural. There is a botanical reason for the resemblance. Commiphora and Boswellia both belong to Burseraceae, a family particularly well known for aromatic resins.
Side by side, though, they stop looking like a matched pair quite so quickly.
Frankincense is often paler, with cream, yellow or lightly amber tears and a brighter aromatic character. Myrrh tends towards deeper amber and reddish brown, with an earthier scent and its characteristic bitterness. They come from different trees and weren't necessarily harvested in precisely the same landscapes.
Their pairing owes at least as much to people as it does to botany. Trade routes, perfumery, incense and religious practice repeatedly brought them together.
Keeping the Tears
Once dried, myrrh is relatively straightforward to store. A tightly closed container keeps out dust and helps preserve its aromatic character, while a cool, dry place away from strong sunlight and heat suits longer storage.
The resin doesn't always remain in neat individual pieces. Warmth can soften it enough for tears to stick together, and a jar that went away filled with separate chunks may eventually come back out holding one considerably larger one.
It can be broken apart again, although a particularly solid piece may require more determination than its botanical origins suggest.
In the Apotheca
Myrrh doesn't necessarily win much attention on appearance alone. Its pieces are irregular, often dark and sometimes still carrying tiny fragments from the tree. Then the jar opens.
That contrast is part of what makes it interesting to keep as a botanical material rather than thinking of myrrh only as a fragrance. Every hardened piece began soft enough to seep through damaged bark. Air and heat did the rest, turning it into something solid enough to survive storage, trade and journeys the tree itself could never make.
Frankincense may sit nearby, as it has in one form or another for thousands of years. Keeping the two together doesn't make myrrh less distinct. If anything, the comparison brings out the darker colour, earthy bitterness and heavier aromatic character that belong to it.
Old travelling companions, certainly. Not twins.
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