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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
grow on it, as on limestone around us, or on sandstone in parts 
of the Mendip Hills, or on the alluvium salt marshes by the 
Severn. Now a glance at the geological map shows that in 
Herefordshire the geological formation is chiefly of sandstone, and 
although Glamorganshire contains a similar rocky soil with much 
of the limestone and coal measures added, yet on similar soil the 
Mistletoe is remarkable by its absence. Another factor which 
influences the distribution of plants is the direction in which the 
hills slope, whether towards the north or elsewhere, so as to 
modify the amount of rainfall and sunlight, but this does not 
seem to apply to the hilly counties under view. 
The only suggestion that I can offer is that when the fruits 
are ripe about mid-winter the migration of thrushes and black- 
birds takes place to the lower and warmer plains, and the birds 
may travel away from the Welsh hills towards the south-west, 
and so over long periods may carry the seeds only in that 
direction. 
You will have noticed my list of trees bearing the Mistletoe 
did not include the oak. It was purposely omitted, because it 
needs a more extended mention. 
The oak and the Mistletoe have always been associated in 
popular story and in history, because our Anglo-Saxon forefathers 
in England and in the north-west of France made the Mistletoe 
growing on the oak a sacred plant, and one of the chief points 
around which their whole religion centred. In modern times it is 
exceedingly rare for the oak to be found bearing Mistletoe, and 
the Druids must have experienced the same lack of such oaks, 
for Nature does not change in that way, and would have limited 
the number to them as she does for us. For many years it was 
thought that there were only seven oak trees in all England that 
bore the Mistletoe, but a more careful search at the end of the 
last century was rewarded by the discovery of three more such 
trees in Herefordshire, and one of these has an added interest 
to us, because it was made by a former Vice-President of this 
Society, the late Mr. Charles Fortey, when resident at Ludlow, 
before making his home in Clifton. Parts of Gloucestershire 
also are fortunate, for such an oak is on record at Frampton-on- 
Severn, and at Sedbury near the Monmouthshire border, but in- 
cluding these, the whole of England could boast of knowing only 
ten oak trees on which the Mistletoe grew. 
Recognising, then, the interest that attaches to a Mistletoe- 
bearing oak and its scarcity, the members of this Society will 
be gratified to know that within the last month I have found a 
splendid example in our own immediate neighbourhood, and I 
have much pleasure in giving to them the first information of 
the discovery. 
In the Leigh Woods, in that portion to which the public have 
free access, and facing the Avon Gorge, there is a lofty oak tree, 
the species Quercus intermedia, which has near its top and some 
