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HARDW1 CKE ' ^ S CIENCE - G O SSIP. 



plants. It flowers in spring, and is usually covered 

 during the winter with small, white, glutinous berries, 

 not unlike tiny pearls. In some situations the 

 mistletoe is rather difficult to propagate, which is 

 most readily performed by inserting the bruised 

 berries into crevices, or even rubbing them on the 

 smooth surface of the bark in spring — the glutinous 

 matter of the fruit aiding in attaching it — and tying a 

 piece of matting or other material over as a preserva- 

 tive against birds and insects, both of which are 

 dread enemies to the young plant. The mistletoe 

 may also be grafted by inserting, early in May, a 

 scion with a bud and leaf into an incision made in 

 the bark of such tree as it is intended to grow upon. 

 The seed is not long in germinating ; the radicle 

 penetrating into one of the numerous chinks of the 

 bark settles between the wood and bark of the 

 sustaining tree, and finally insinuating its fibres into 

 the woody substance soon becomes one with its 

 foster parent, deriving the ready-made nourishment 

 therefrom necessary for its own support. The seeds 

 are triangular in shape, and at two of the angles put 

 forth shoots very nearly resembling the horns of a 

 snail. 



Occasionally both horns take root and form two 

 distinct plants, supposed by some to be male and 

 female, but of this latter I cannot speak with any 

 amount of certainty. After collecting information 

 from various sources,' the following is a list of the 

 trees on which the mistletoe has been found, the 

 addresses of recorders being now in my possession : 

 apple, pear, whitethorn, oak, elm, willow, maple, 

 poplar, lime, service, hazel, horse-chestnut, acacia, 

 mountain ash, laburnum, white broom, laurel, locust- 

 tree, crab-tree, birch, sycamore, medlar, lime, 

 service, white beam, alder, hornbeam, larch, and, 

 according to a correspondent of " The Garden," 

 abundantly on the Scotch fir between Munich and 

 Innspruck, in the Bavarian Tyrol. 



The late Mr. Bentham, in his last edition of the 

 "British Flora," says that mistletoe is not known in 

 Scotland or Ireland. This is, however, surely a 

 mistake, as in an orchard rented by my father on Sir 

 "William Verner's estate in the North of Ireland, I 

 have frequently seen the mistletoe growing on the 

 apple-trees ; and in Scotland, according to Mr. 

 Henry Evershed, it grows on the north side of 

 Kinnoul Hill, near Perth, and in the nurseries of Mr. 

 Morrison at Elgin, and at Gordon Castle in Moray- 

 shire. 



I believe, however, although I am at present 

 anable to state positively, that neither in Scotland 

 nor Ireland has the mistletoe been found growing on 

 the oak. 



The mistletoe is perhaps more frequently associated 

 with the oak than any other tree, but it is well known 

 that the plant is rarely found on the oak ; how rarely 

 the following list of mistletoe oaks in England and 

 Wales will show : 



(i) At Clarendon Park, Salisbury, Wilts; (2) two 

 miles from Cheltenham ; (3) at Llindridge, Worces- 

 tershire ; (4) at Lord Lowndes' Park, Lees Court, 

 Kent ; (5) at Knightrick Church, Worcestershire ; 



(6) at Hendre, Llangattoch, Lingoed, Monmouth ; 



(7) at Budwardine, Herefordshire ; (8) at Haven, in 

 the ancient forest of Durford, Hereford ; (9) at 

 Frampton Severn, Gloucestershire ; (10) not far from 

 Plymouth (by the side of the South Devon Railway) ; 

 (11) at Hackwood Park, Basingstoke, Hants ; (12) 

 at Badham's Court, Sunbury Park, near Chepstow ; 

 (13) at Ledstone, Delamere ; (14) at Eastnor, Here- 

 ford ; (15) at Burningford Farm, Dunsford, Surrey; 

 (16) in an old forest in Carmarthenshire. 



The above may be considered as a pretty accurate 

 summary of the mistletoe oaks in England, but I 

 shall be very pleased to hear from any one who can 

 further extend the list. Miss Owen, of Knockmullen, 

 writes me to say that her friend Mr. O. Donnavan 

 found the mistletoe growing on several oaks, and at 

 least one fir-tree, in the remains of an old forest that 

 extends here and there along the courses of both the 

 Towy and Cotti rivers in Carmarthenshire. 



I have now come to the conclusion, that there is no 

 tree on which the mistletoe will not grow, and that 

 its scarcity on any tree is not owing to any dislike on 

 the part of the mistletoe, and I believe that further 

 research will only tend to confirm my statement. 



Of the Druidical and superstitious uses of this 

 plant some curious particulars are related by Pliny in 

 his " Natural History," where we learn that it was 

 ordained to be cut with a golden sickle, and only by 

 the priest, clothed in white, and the plant received 

 in a white cassock at all times before the moon was 

 six days old (literally translated). It is a curious 

 fact that in the favourite Mona of the Druids 

 — Anglesea, that greatest seat of Druidical super- 

 stition — there is not, according to the Rev. Hugh 

 Davies, a single specimen of the mistletoe oak, 

 although of cromlechs, carredds, and other Druidical 

 remains, many still exist, not a few being in a good 

 state of preservation. 



THE AGE OF THE MALVERN HILLS. 

 By J. Walter Gregory. 



[Continued from p. 126.] 



HAVING thus discussed the evidence on which 

 the new interpretation is mainly erected, let 

 us briefly glance at that on which the old theory 

 stands. 



The leading points are Firstly : it is in thorough 

 accordance with the general structure of the hills, 

 the chloritic and micaceous schists, which are 

 particularly well exhibited at Wind's Point, becoming 

 more gneissoid and less schistose as they approach 

 the syenitic nucleus, and gradually passing into 

 masses with the lines of bedding quite obliterated. 



