208 Oti buddmg and grafting the Mistletoe. 



The above are extracts from three letters received from Mr. 

 Beaton ; and with the last we received the scions and branch of 

 oak containing mistletoe on it referred to. The oak branch is 

 about 3 ft. long, the bunch of mistletoe about 18 in. in diameter; 

 and it appears to be a male plant. Its largest leaves measure 

 2^ in. long, and \^m. broad; which is about one fourth larger 

 than those of the mistletoe growing on the apple. No leaves 

 or acorns were sent along with the oak ; but, from the large 

 size of the buds, we should suppose it to be Quercus sessilifl5ra. 



The following extract from the Arboretum Britanniciim ex- 

 hibits all that we knew respecting the propagation of the mistle- 

 toe in August, 1836: — " In a state of nature, the mistletoe is 

 propagated by the berries being, by some means or other, made 

 to adhere to the bark of a living tree. The common agency by 

 which this is effected is supposed to be that of birds ; and more 

 especially of the missel thrush, which, after having satisfied itself 

 by eating the berries, wipes off such of them as may adhere to 

 the outer part of its beak, by rubbing it against the branch of 

 the tree on which it has alighted ; and some of the seeds are 

 thus left sticking to the bark. If the bark should be smooth, 

 and not much indurated, the seeds will germinate, and root into 

 it the following spring; that is, supposing them to have been 

 properly fecundated by the proximity of a male plant to the 

 female one which produced them. Aristotle and Pliny among 

 the ancients, and Dr. Walker among the moderns, considered 

 that the mistletoe was propagated by the excrements of the 

 birds which had fed on the berries ; supposing that the heat of 

 the stomach, and the process of digestion, were necessary to pre- 

 pare the seeds for vegetation. Ray first suggested the idea of 

 trying by experiment whether the seed would vegetate without 

 passing through the body of a bird; and, at his suggestion, 

 Mr. Doody, an apothecary of London, inserted a seed of the 

 mistletoe into the bark of a white poplar tree, which grew in 

 his garden, with complete success. This, Professor Martin ob- 

 serves, has been since done by many persons, both by rubbing 

 the berries on the smooth bark of various trees, and by insert- 

 ing them in a cleft, or in a small hole bored on purpose, which 

 was the mode adopted by Doody. Mr. Baxter of the Oxford 

 Botanic Garden, in the spring of 1833, rubbed nine mistletoe 

 seeds on the smooth bark of an apple tree, all of which germi- 

 nated : two produced only one radicle each, six produced two 

 radicles each, and one produced three ; from which it follows, 

 that two radicles are more common than one in the seeds of this 

 plant. There as many embryos as radicles. 



" The celebrated Du Hamel, arguing that the seeds of the 

 mistletoe, like the seeds of other plants, would germinate any- 

 where, provided they had a suitable degree of humidity, made 

 them sprout not only on the barks of different kinds of living 



