Merum?

Mirim, marim, merum, merrem, melrim?... How do you write something that
you've ever only heard spoken through multiple accents? Very
difficult. This plant is the new wonder sweeping across the Sepik.
It's a plant that grows into a large bush, roughly two meters tall and
wide. Once it has reached a large size, the people that are purchasing
the leaves have sent out harvesting instructions. They are very clear
that you must take a scissors and cut off each leaf, don't tear it off,
then you place the leaves in the sun until they're nearly dry and then
pack them into the small 1Kg rice bags and bring them down to the
factory that is being built in the lower Karawari river. The reason
this plant has generated so much attention in the last six months here
is that the rumors say that for just one of these 1Kg bags of dried
leaves you can earn K1,500, or even up to K3,000. When I'm told this
story, my first reaction is to say, maybe 1Kg of the finished product
might be worth that, but no chance that your silly dried leaves are
worth that much. Most people here don't agree with my sense of
skepticism... Though if they can't count, maybe they think they're
getting multiple thousands... ;-)

So, what does it make? No one seems to know, or really care, they all
see Kina signs and that's good enough for them. I was brought a sample
of this plant because I was so curious as to what it could possibly make
and I smashed a few leaves in my hands and smelled them. It's got a
smell that I would expect a female perfume to have, somewhat sweet, but
with a hint of old person... Think of the good parts of the smell of
grandma's house, without the apple pie in the air... Now you see that I
am not a perfume expert as I have no idea how to classify this smell,
but it was a very light scent even with the handful of leaves that I
had. (Might have something to do with my more than burned out nose from
years of hog buildings and welding smoke, but I digress) The water from
the leaves just barely showed any hint of oiliness, which also explains
why the scent was so weak. All in all, it was a pleasant scent, but not
something that I would directly say was intended for perfume.

So, my questions remains: What does it make? What is the real name of
this plant? Unfortunately my picture isn't the best, and the specimen
had been chewed on pretty thoroughly by some insect, but hopefully you
can zoom in and get an idea of the shape of the leaves, even with the
poor resolution I'm forced to use currently... Oh, and for the record,
I heard from a somewhat more reputable source that the actual selling
price is K100 for 10, 1Kg bags of leaves, or K10 per bag... That I'd
believe.