310 THE MISTLETOE IN HEREFORDSHIRE. 
rough and porous. Dr. Harley was led to suppose “ that a difference 
in size, number, and arrangement of the medullary rays might explain 
it, and serve to determine, in any given case, the attachment of the 
Mistletoe;" and he, accordingly, guided by their minute anatomical 
structure, has arranged a list of thirty trees in the supposed order of 
their liability to become the site of the parasite. On dividing the list 
into three groups :— 
The ten trees most predisposed to bear Mistletoe, and in the order 
in which they stand, are stated to be:—The Vine, Maple, Walnut, 
Elder, Holly, Plum, Acacia, Cherry-laurel, Portugal Laurel, Plum. 
All these are common in this county, and yet Mistletoe is only found 
on the Maple and Acacia. 
The middle group, or those only moderately liable from their struc- 
ture to bear Mistletoe, are thus given :—Hawthorn, Apple and Crab, 
Almond, Medlar, Lime, Olive, Ash, Poplar, Willow, Alder. This 
group contains all the chief Mistletoe-bearing trees, and mixed with 
them at least three kinds—the Alder, Willow, and Ash,—upon which 
it but rarely occurs spontaneously. 
The group least liable to become affected by the parasite, is framed 
as follows:— Pear, Elm and Birch, Fir, Larch, Lilac, Oak, Beech, 
Spanish Chestnut, Hazel, Horse-chestnut. The Mistletoe is found in 
this county on three of these trees, and on the Hazel at least three 
instances are known, inconspicuous as it is on this tree. 
Mr. Buckmann gives the following table of the comparative frequency 
with which trees are prone to bear Mistletoe :—the various kinds of 
Apple, 25; Poplar, mostly black, 20; Whitethorn, 10; Lime, 4; 
Maple, 3; Willow, 2; Oak, 1; Sycamore, 1; Acacia, 1 (N. & Q. iii. 
226). In Herefordshire, the proportion for the Apple-tree must cer- 
tainly be raised considerably, and the Acacia be put higher on the list. 
It is remarkable that when the Mistletoe has once established itself 
on any kind of tree, and the rule holds equally good for those it but 
seldom inhabits, it frequently grows in several branches at the same 
time, as if the tree no longer possessed its original power of resisting 
the intruder. The tree shows it too, and soon puts on a desolate woe- 
begone look, with fading leaves, and dying branches. It is thought 
that the Limes in this condition in Datehet Mead—a place often men- 
tioned in the “ Merry Wives of Windsor”—gave Shakespeare (Tit. 
And. ii. 3) the illustration embodied in these lines .— 
