292 



NOTES ON MISTLETOE. 



By DoM Ethelbert Horne. 



The following experiments and observations have been made 

 durinff the last five A^ears. I should state that I am not a 

 botanist, but only an observer, and in this and other branches 

 of natural history I hope I can observe minutely and record fairly 

 accurately. The experiments with the seeds recorded below were 

 made at Downside Abbey, about twelve miles from Bath, and 

 situated some 600 feet above sea level, on the Mendip Hills. 

 Mistletoe does not grow naturally anywhere in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood, the nearest place where it may be found being five miles 

 away. The orchard where I have watched the Viscwn in flower 

 is on the outskirts of the city of Hereford, and the parasite grows 

 there in extraordinary abundance. On one fairly small apple-tree 

 I counted twenty-eight distinct bunches, so that I had an ample 

 opportunity of observing plants widely differing in age and 

 situated in different aspects. 



I. Growth. 



On January 21st, 1911, I squeezed a number of seeds from 

 ripe mistletoe berries and placed them on a " Glastonbury " thorn. 

 By March 31st these seeds were beginning to send out radicles, 

 and by the 1st of the following May these radicles were about 

 half their full length and their tips were enlarging. A fortnight 

 later the radicles appeared to be full length and the disks at their 

 tips were expanded and fixed firmly down on to the bark of their 

 host. In August and September the exhausted seeds fell from 

 the tree and the free end of the radicle quickly shrunk down to 

 the disk, which became slightly convex. In May, 1912, each 

 disk sent out from this raised centre a pair of stems about half an 

 inch in length, bearing at their ends a pair of seed-leaves. From 

 the end of the month there appeared to be no further growth. In 

 May, 1913, a single stem was produced between each of these 

 pairs of seed-leaves, having a pair of true leaves at their extremi- 

 ties. Growth appeared to cease in about six weeks. In May, 

 1914, a pair of stems came out between each pair of leaves, and 

 this method of increase was continued in the plants the following 

 year, except that in one case three stems issued. In April, 1916, 

 these plants flowered for the first time. There were two male and 

 two female plants, but one of the latter is probably only produced 

 from a '• runner " under the bark. The male plants are from two 

 distinct seeds. The seed-leaves were shed when the true leaves 

 appeared, and by 1914 none of the plants retained them. One 

 plant, the year following the issue of the first stem, sent out 

 another at the same spot, but this carried true leaves — it was 

 evidently of the nature of a shoot from an established plant. 



There appear to be two kinds of mistletoe seeds — those that 

 produce but one radicle and those that produce two or more. 

 The former are oblong in shape and the latter triangular, In the 



