CLASS XX1I, ORDER 111. | VISCUM. 1279 
The Misseltoe, though found mostly growing upon Apple trees, is 
not very unfrequent upon the Oak, the Hawthorn, Lime, Maple, 
Poplar, Ash, &c. The Misseltoe is the only true parasitical plant 
indigenous to Britain, since it has not at any period of its growth any 
connection with the ground, as the Orabanchies and Cuscutas have. 
The germination of the Misseltoe and its allied genus, Loranthus, is 
a subject of considerable physiological interest. The berries are a 
favourite food of thrushes, blackbirds, &c.; and as the hard cased 
seed which they contain passes through the intestines of the birds 
uninjured, they are lodged, after being stimulated to germination iu 
their passage, in the situation upon the branches of trees most fitted 
for their growth; and as from the berries bird lime is made, the 
doggrel rhyme is true, that 
** The thrush when he pollutes the bough, 
Sows for himself the seeds of woe.” 
The seeds being deposited, they, during germination, send out the 
radicle, which tends towards the centre of the branch in whatever 
part they may happen to be fixed. This law, which seems to be constant 
with these parasites, is contrary to that of all other seeds of plants, 
which put out their radicle, and tend towards the centre of the earth, 
and not towards the centre of the object upon which they grow. 
These parasitical plants are not difficult to propagate, by making a slit 
in the bark of a tree, inserting the seed within it, and then tying it in 
its place by a shred of mat to frotect it from birds. 
The Misseltoe is always associated with our ideas in the remem- 
brance of Christmas, and its festivities and the custom of decking 
churches and houses with evergreens at that period of the year, a 
custom which has been in existence ever since the establishment of 
Christianity amongst us, and appears to have been derived from a 
similar practice of the Pagans. “Trimming of temples,” says Poly- 
dore Virgil, “ with hangyngs, flowres, boughes, and garlendes, was 
taken of the heathen people, which decked their idols and houses with 
such array.” The Goths and the Celts regarded the Missletoe with 
most respectful veneration, and the Druids were famed for the religious 
regard with which they considered the Missletoe of the Oak, and the 
virtues which they attributed to it, when found growing, as it 
now but rarely is, on that tree. At certain seasons of the year, 
and especially at Yule Tide or Christmas, they were accustomed to 
gather it with great solemnity, and to sacrifice two white bullocks that 
had never been yoked. It was cut from the tree with a golden bill 
or knife, by a priest, habited in a white vestment, and was received 
in a woollen cloth; many orations were then said over it, and after 
the ceremony the sacred plant was preserved with religious care. 
According to the account of the Rey. Mr. Shaw, there is still a 
practice amongst the inhabitants of Elein and Moray Shires, Scot- 
land, to cut withes of the Missletoe or Ivy at the full moon in March, 
