88 



gentlemen rode off to the tree. Since Sir George paid the 

 £ 1 we may be quite sure the Mistletoe was there upon the Oak, 

 though it has never since been heard of. 



It formerly grew on an Oak in Rockingham Forest, near 

 Moorshay Lawn, Northamptonshire, where the tree was notched 

 for the convenience of climbing up to get the Mistletoe. (J. 

 Percival Smith, Esq.) 



It grew some years since on the lower bough of an Oak in 

 the Vale of Neath, Glamorganshire, about two miles below 

 Aberpergwm House, but the Oak was afterwards blown down in 

 a storm. 



It grew on an Oak at Mersham Hatch near Ashford, 

 Kent, where the tree was cut down : it grew on another Oak, at 

 Ledbury, which was also cut down accidently : and it also has 

 grown upon several other Oaks, if the most positive statements 

 of trustworthy intelligent people are to be relied on ; but it is 

 unnecessary now to mention them further, since they have never 

 been noticed publicly, and are admitted no longer to exist. 



Mr. Edwin Lees (Phytologist 1851, p. 357.) thinks "that 

 Mistletoe occurs much more frequently on the Oak than is 

 generally imagined but that the instances arc not made known." 

 The present enquiry about it, gives a result precisely the reverse. 

 The belief in its frequent occurrence is very general, it is the 

 fact that fails. Many persons have seen it, and are sure of it, 

 but no one can shew the tree with the Mistletoe on it. Time 

 after time have I followed up the most precise statements to my 

 repeated disappointment. "The Mistletoe on the Oak" writes an 

 energetic searcher for it in Monmouthshire, "is like a ghost, it 

 vanishes into thin air, when you try to grasp it ; everybody has 

 eeen it long ago, but the tree is always cut down, or somehow or 

 other the result is — ml."— Most woodwards will tell you, and in 

 good faith too, that they have seen it, and indeed will generally 

 mention the exact tree, and the place where it grows, but the 

 result of their further examination has always been the same : 

 for some cause or other, the instance fails, and the Mistletoe can 

 never be shewn on the Oak. The tree has been felled, or blown 



