MISTLETOE 205 



other plant.^ While one's ideas as to parasites, human or 

 otherwise, do not err on the side of special esteem for 

 them, it was just this parasitic character that gave this 

 plant its sacredness in the eyes of the Druidic priesthood, 

 since, unlike all other plants, it was not born of earth 

 and its defilements, but was a sacred heaven-born thing, 

 and, when found growing upon the sacred oak, was 

 regarded as a direct gift of the gods to man. 



The mistletoe is found growing, more or less freely, 

 on many different kinds of trees, as the aspen, pear, alder, 

 maple, rowan, hazel, ash, sycamore, medlar, plane, horse- 

 chestnut, service, acacia, walnut, poplar, lime, hawthorn, 

 even the dog-rose and azalea, but more especially on the 

 apple. In some old neglected orchards almost every tree 

 may be seen bearing it, and its effect on the tree is 

 wholly prejudicial.- The mistletoe is a very hardy plant, 

 and when it has once got possession retains it, neither 

 boisterous wind nor hard frost seeming to hurt it at all. 



Only a very few authentic cases are on record of the 

 growth of the mistletoe upon the oak, and this great 

 rarity of occurrence would, naturally, greatly increase the 

 reverence for it wherever so found. We must remember, 

 however, when we dwell on its extreme rarity, that in 



' Theoplirastus maintained that mistletoe was an exudation from the trees 

 it was found on — " Quasi cornua ex ossibus animalittmy 



• " There is a great Deficiency in the ordering of Orchards, in that they 

 are not well pruned, but full of Mosse, Mistletoe, and Suckers," as we read 

 in The Compleat Husbandman, or a Discourse of the whole Art of Husbandry, 

 both Forraign and Domestick, " wherein many rare and most hidden Secrets 

 and Experiments are laid open to the view of all, for the enriching of these 

 Nations," the scraping away of the mistletoe off the apple-trees being one 

 of these. The book was written by one Samuel Hartlib, and published 

 " at the Crane in Paul's Churchyard " in 1659. 



