MISTLETOE 



Phoradendron Ravescens (Pursh) Nutt. 



June 



On trees in southern 

 Illinois 



Plant of the remote mythical past of the Old 

 "World, yet a part of the Illinois flora, mistletoe 

 is a creature of legend. It grows wild in south- 

 ern Illinois in counties bordering the rivers and 

 forming a horseshoe beginning with Lawrence County on the Wabash 

 and ending with Jackson on the Mississippi. 



Here on many an oak and apple and elm, as well as on black gum, 

 maple, sycamore, walnut, and honey locust, the great clusters of the 

 mistletoe stand revealed when the leaves fall from the host trees. High 

 above the ground the mistletoe in early sunnner blossomed with small 

 greenish-yellow flowers and in autumn its translucent white waxen ber- 

 ries are ripe. Perhaps the robins wintering in the southern part of the 

 state will come to the treetops to eat mistletoe berries. As the missel 

 thrush of England does, perhaps the robins wipe their sticky beaks on 

 a bough to clean off the clinging seeds. Thus will the mistletoe seeds 

 find a place to grow. "With never any contact with the soil, the tiny seeds 

 finally will genninate, will send ])hig roots into the l)ark and eventually 

 into the tissues of the tree. The mistletoe is a ])artial ])arasite. Althougli 

 its thick oval leaves manufacture their owm food, the plant, nevertheless, 

 is dependent upon the tree for water and minerals. The tree itself does 

 not appear to be greatly harmed by its guest. 



Through the centuries the mistletoe, because of its strange maniiei' 

 of growth, has been surrounded with legend aud myth. In ancient Britain, 

 mistletoe was revered by the Druids who. at the beginning of the winter 

 solstice, held a special ceremony to cut the mistletoe from the sacred oak 

 and bits of the plant were given to all who watched the ceremony. 



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