CHAP. CV. CORYLA‘CEH. QUE/’RCUS. 1831 
oak trees, are chiefly mosses; and, in very moist climates, Polypodium vulgare, 
and some other ferns. It is proper to state, however, that these plants can- 
not be considered as peculiar to the oak ; but that they are merely found on 
that tree more commonly than on any other, on account of the denseness of its 
shade during summer. Some oak trees, among the hills 
of Westmoreland and Cumberland (for example, in Leven’s 
Grove, and in the grounds of the poet Wordsworth at 
Rydal), have the trunks and main branches quite green, 
with the foliage of P. vulgare; and others covered with a 
mossy envelope of different species of 1Zjpnum. The 
mosses most commonly found on trees are, H¥pnum den- 
ticulatum Eng. Bot.,t. 1260.,and our fig. 1656, H. tenél- 
lum, H. sérpens, H. lutéscens Eng. Bot., t. 1301., H. 
Pohk, H. curvatum, H. confértum, and H. cupressiforme 
Eng. Bot., t. 1860., and our fig. 1658., Léskea incurvata, 
L. trichomandides, and L. complanata Eng. Bot., t. 1492., and our fig. 1657., 
Daltonia heteromalla, Néckera crispa, N. pinnata, and various others; but 
none of these can be considered as exclusively confined 
to the oak. 
The mistletoe is the only truly parasitic plant which 
grows on the oak; but it is so rarely found on it in Eng- 
land, that many persons have doubted the fact of that 
tree ever having been its habitat. 
The mistletoe of the oak is, how- 
ever, so intimately connected 
, with all the traditions of the 
©} druids, that we cannot doubt 
f the fact of its having been ac- 
tually found by them ; especially 
as we are told that its being discovered was so rare an 
occurrence, as to be attended by rejoicings. We also 
find that the apple tree was considered a sacred tree, and 
that apple orchards were always appended to the oak 1658 
groves of the druids. (See Davis’s Celtic Researches, &c.) Now,as we know 
that the mistletoe grows very freely on the apple tree, the seeds of the mistletoe 
might very naturally be conveyed from the apple orchard to the adjoining 
oaks, and some might vegetate on them. After numerous enquiries on this 
subject, we succeeded in March, 1837, in learning from Mr. D. Beaton, gardener 
at Haffield, near Ledbury, that Mr. Pitt, a small farmer in that neighbourhood, 
recollected seeing it on an oak tree near Ledbury, adjoining to which there 
was a willow tree loaded with mistletoe, from which the oak was supposed to 
have been supplied. This oak was cut down in 1831. Through the kindness 
of Mr. Moss, gardener to Earl Somers, at Eastnor Castle, Mr. Beaton received 
an account of an oak tree growing near the castle, on which there are several 
plants of mistletoe, one of which is of great age, and its branches occupy a 
space nearly 5ft. in diameter. The mistletoe on the oak grows with greater 
vigour, and has broader leaves, than that which has grown on the apple; and 
its stem does not form that swelling at its junction with the oak, that it does 
on most other trees. Of these facts we had ocular demonstration from a 
large and handsome specimen of mistletoe growing from an oak branch, sent 
to us in March, 1837, by Mr. Beaton; and which, in order that the fact of 
the mistletoe growing on the oak might no longer be doubted by botanists or 
gardeners, we exhibited on April 4th, 1837, at the meetings of the Horticul- 
tural Society, and of the Linnzean Society, held on that day. (See Gard. Mag., 
vol. xiii. p. 206.) Subsequently, Mr. Brackenridge, a Scotch gardener, who 
is just returned from Berlin, has informed us that he saw the mistletoe on 
several oak trees, near Lobsens, in the Duchy of Posen, about 11 miles on 
the south side of the town of Posen, near to an old cloister, the property of 
M. Ebers, to whom Mr. Brackenridge was, for a short time, gardener. “Lo- 
ranthus’ europzus, a parasite closely resembling the Viscum Album, is fre- 
