144 MISSELTOE. 



solemnities. At the commencement of the new year, the plant 

 was distributed among the people as a sacred relic, and was 

 deemed a panacea against every disease, and a remedy for 

 poisons*. Some naturalists suppose that the Loranthus Euro- 

 pceus, which is very frequent in the south of Europe upon the 

 oak, is the Misseltoe of the ancients, and that when every 

 vestige of Druidism was swept away from Britain, the sacred 

 plant shared in the common desolation ; but " the very circum- 

 stance of a search being made for the Misseltoe of the oak, in 

 an age when these islands were covered with forests of oak, is 

 opposed to the idea of the Loranthus being the plant in ques- 

 tion : had it then been indigenous here, the oak would have 

 been its common if not exclusive habitat, and this confirms 

 the belief that the Viscum was the branch which the Druids 

 went with such solemnity to cull."-j- 



Virgil adheres to the opinion already mentioned, of its not 

 being reproduced by seed : — 



" Quale solet sylvis brumali frigore viscum 



Fronde virere nova, quod non sua seminat arbos, 

 Et croceo foetu teretes circumdare truncos." 



JEneid, lib. vi. v. 205. 



The berries were esteemed poisonous : Shakspeare probably 

 alludes to this opinion when he calls it hateful Misseltoe : — 



" A barren and detested vale, you see it is ; 



The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean, 

 O'ercome with moss and baleful Misseltoe." 



Yet the berries are greedily devoured in the winter months 

 by thrushes, field-fares, wood-pigeons, and other birds. Sheep 

 are fond of the foliage, and it is even said to preserve them from 

 the rot. Moreover, Bock J states that poor persons have, in 

 times of scarcity, collected and dried the branches and leaves 

 of Misseltoe, then pulverised and mixed them with rye-flour, 

 and thus obtained a kind of bread which was by no means un- 

 wholesome. 



Qualities. — The leaves and tops, when recently gathered, 

 are nearly inodorous, with a sub-viscid, somewhat austere taste 

 when masticated. " Extracts made from them by water are 



* Vide Plin. Hist. lib. xxiv. c. 4. 



•j- Burnett's Outlines of Botany, p. 765. 



£ Natural History of Prussia, vol. Hi. p. 367- 



