325 



■■ Have I not reason to look pale ? 



These two have 'ticed me to this place ; 

 A barren, detested vale you see it is : 

 The trees, though Summer, yet forlorn and lean, 

 O'ercome with moss, and baletul Mistletoe." 

 {Tit. And. Act II., sc. 3.) 



Dr. Harley has so well described the effects of the Mistletoe on the supporting 

 branch, and the struggle for life between them, that I must again make a free 

 extract from his interesting paper. " The roots of the Mistletoe stand to the 

 nourishing plant in the relation of a hypertrophied (increased) medullary system 

 and one which induces an excessive flow of sap to the branch, resulting at first in 

 the local hypertrophy (thickening) of its tissues, but subsequently the supply ot 

 sap, or the power of transmitting it, failing, the central portion of the wood 

 becomes exhausted and dies, involving in its death that of the destroyer also. 

 The branch, however, still maintains its vigour, and slowly buries the inveterate 

 intruder by its subsequent growth. But other roots are meanwhile penetrating 

 the newly formed layers of wood, and its whole circumference is in time more 

 thickly beset with parasites than ever. The branch is heaved out into a spindle- 

 shaped swelling, and the outer layers of the bark are rent into wide branches 

 favourable to the continued encroachments of the invading parasite, while its 

 inner layers become immensely thickened, and form a suitable nidus for its in- 

 crease. After a while the second crop of roots spread destruction still further 

 outwards, and like the former crop, implicate themselves in it. The branch still 

 struggles vigorously with its enemy, but as fast as one generation of roots is 

 dying, a later and more numerous progeny attack it. The affected branch more- 

 over assumes various contortions, being twisted sometimes in one direction, and 

 sometimes in another ; it is frequently found bent at right angles to itself. But it 

 wrestles in vain with a veritable hydra which, having killed its centre, spoiled, 

 and occupied its bark, and invaded anew the living wood that remains, now 

 gradually completes the work of destruction." An excellent example of this 

 struggle, as here pictured, is to be seen in a Lime tree at Yarkhill, — a thoroughly 

 Mistletoe -possessed tree, its branches all knotted and dying but yet sending off 

 fresh shoots at all angles below the knots, in the vain effort to overcome the 

 enemy ; and in other trees in a lesser degree too numerous to mention. 



III. — The Occurrence of the Mistletoe on the Oak. 



The Viscum album but rarely " gains a settlement " on the Oak tree— as 

 seldom in our own day as in the Druidical times of old, when its very rarity 

 heightened the veneration with which it was regarded when found. " Est 

 autem id varum admodum inventum, et repertum magna religione petitur " says 

 Pliny in his natural History, (lib. xvi, c. 44-) In an excellent note by Dr. Giles 

 in his translation of " Richard of Cirencester," (p. 432) he gives the opinion of Dr. 

 Daubeny, that Mistletoe-growing oaks were exterminated after the Druids were 

 destroyed. (N. & Q., Vol. ii.) It is highly probable that this was the case, but 

 since all their oaks too have been gone centiuries since, it can make no difference as 



