Il'l PHILOSOPHICAL TFANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1728. 



At the latter end of May, the male plants put out little knobs, at the joints 

 and tops of their boughs; which at first are not very unlike the young green 

 berries, but they soon appear evidently distinct from them, and being by the 

 latter end of July grown as large as the berries, are then not at all like them; 

 spreading wider upwards, and having 3 or 4, or 5 buds, at the top of each 

 knob. About June, the female plant also makes a like preparation, putting 

 out at the joints and tops of the boughs, knobs, which are more sharp, and 

 shorter than those of the male; with 1 or 2, but most commonly with 3 buds, 

 or small points, at the top of each knob. He calls them buds, because in 

 their season they open into flowers, both in the male and female plants; all the 

 rest of the knob serving only for footstalks to the flowers, in the one sort, and 

 to both flower and fruit in the other. By the latter end of August the berries 

 are grown much larger than the knobs on the male plants. And from thence 

 till late in January, there is little remarkable in either plant; only, the berry 

 grows somewhat larger, and becomes ripe, and the knobs on the male grow 

 more and more yellow; so that one may, at that time, discern a male from a 

 female plant, at a considerable distance. By the 20th of February misleto is in 

 bloom, both male and female. The knobs of the male are open at the top with 

 3 or 4, or 5 blossoms; which are very well described, though in short, in Boer- 

 haave's Historia Plantarum, 



The female plant flowers also now, with a blossom, which Boerhaave calls 

 the ovarium, exactly like the male flower, save only, that the whole female 

 flower is not larger than one leaf of the male flower. They both continue in 

 full bloom till the middle of March, when the male blossoms begin to wither 

 and drop ofF. And by the 20th of March the young berries begin to show 

 themselves, swelling forth, one under each female blossom ; which often ad- 

 heres to the top of the berry ; and being carried up with it, presently withers, 

 and soon falls off again; though some continued on till the 12th of May, 

 when the berries were of the size of a large pin's head. 



This completed the year's observation. And Mr, B. wonders, that this plant, 

 the admiration of all ages, should scarcely ever find one observer curious enough 

 to follow its changes through one whole year's revolution. For had this been 

 done with any accuracy, it must have been very evident, that one sort of 

 misleto was very different from the other; one sort bearing very small flowers, 

 with berries succeeding them; the other bearing much larger flowers, not suc- 

 ceeded by any berries; the very footstalk of the male falling off" with the 

 flower; whereas the footstalk of the female becomes a footstalk to the berry. 



