46 WILD FLOWERS OF 



of the descent of the sap in trees before winter, and its 

 dormant state in that season ; for, if it were so, how 

 could the parasitical mistletoe, which derives its sub- 

 sistence entirely from the imbibition of the juices of 

 the tree on which it is found, nourish as it does in 

 winter, if in reality there were no supplies of sap for 

 it to have access to ; for it very soon dies when 

 separated from the foster-parent on which it feeds. 

 It certainly contrives to establish a fund of its own 

 in the hard yet juicy tubercles at its exsertion in the 

 stem; but still its root, which is aualagous to a 

 sucker, and devoid of obvious radicle fibrils, plunged 

 in the sap-wood of the tree, seems always employed in 

 pumping up a supply of provision for its many -headed 

 branches, equally in winter as in summer.* 



It is familiar to almost every educated person that 

 the mistletoe was honoured by the Druids of Gaul 

 and Britain as an heaven-descended plant, which 

 they denominated pren-awyr, the celestial, or tree 

 of the firmament ; and also oll-yacli, all-lieal^ and dis- 

 tributed at certain times with remarkable solemnities 

 as a precious gift. " When the end of the year 

 approached, the Druids marched with great solemnity 

 to gather the mistletoe, in order to present it to God, 

 inviting all the world to assist at the ceremony in 



* I made the experiment not long since of re-committing to the ground 

 the large arms of an apple-tree, on which was a mistletoe-bush, but the 

 plant soon died after the amputation had taken place, quickly withering 

 in its unnatural position, and proving that it depended for support from 

 the circulation of sap from the main bole of the tree from which it was 

 taken. 



t PLINY, lib. xvi. cap. 44, says " omnia-sanaratem appellantes suo 

 vocabulo," &c., and TOLAND, in his History of the Druids, says that the 

 identical word " in the Armoricon dialect, is oll-yach, in the Welsh oil- 

 hiach, and in the Irish utl-iceach." 



