VISCUM ALBUM-COMMON WHITE MISTLETOE. 
Class XXII. DKECIA.— Order VI. TETRANDRIA. 
Natural Order, LORANTHEH3. 
Stem much branched, forked : with sessile, intermediate heads of about 5 flowers ; branches terete ; 
Leaves obovate lanceolate, obtuse, nerveless. Natives of Europe, parasitical on trees, especially on the 
apple tree and hawthorn, but it is said also to have been found growing on the lime tree, oak, American 
locust tree, elm, fir, pear tree service, almond, white willow, walnut, &c. Viscum album of Thunb. and 
Walt, are distinct from this. Root hard, incorporated deep with the wood of the tree on which it grows, 
without any radicles, as in all the other species of this genus as well as of Loranthus and the allied genera. 
Leaves permanent, stiff, with parallel ribs. Flowers yellowish. Berries white, pellucid, the size of a cur- 
rant, sweet, very glutinous internally, serving to make the best bird-lime, when boiled with a small portion 
of vegetable oil. Loranthus Europceus seems to be the original and most common mistletoe ; of the 
Greeks, which grows usually on some kind of fir tree. But our Viscum album is sometimes found in Greece, 
though rarely, growing on the oak ; and this has been preferred from the most remote antiquity. Hence 
when the superstitions of the East travelled westward, our Druids adopted a notion of the mistletoe of the 
oak being more holy or efficacious in conjurations or medicine, than what any other tree afforded, the 
Loranthus or ordinary mistletoe not being known here. This superstition actually remains, and a plant of 
Viscum Album from an oak is preferred by those who rely on virtues, which perhaps never existed in any 
mistletoe whatever. The Druids sent round their attendant youths with branches of mistletoe to announce 
the entrance of the new year; and something like the same custom is still continued in France. In England 
branches of it are hung up in most houses at Christmas, along with other evergreens. The berries are de- 
voured by several birds of the thrush kind, and especially by the mistletoe thrush. The common mistletoe 
is not difficult to propagate by sticking the berries on thorn or apple trees, after a little of the outer bark 
has been cut off, and tying a shred of mat over them, to protect them from the birds. 
Professor Burnett says, “ Loranthus Europceus is in the southern parts of Europe a very frequent para- 
site on the oak, and indeed inhabits no other tree, while the viscum is very seldom found thereon, being 
chiefly confined to the hawthorn and the apple. This circumstance has led some naturalists to suppose the 
Loranthus to have been the mistletoe of the Druids, and to believe, as it is not now indigenous to Britain, 
that when Druidism was suppressed, every vestige of that stupendous superstition was so completely swept 
away, that even the sacred plant was extirpated here. Such a speculation, however, seems so wild, that the 
following is offered in its stead: — 
The mistletoe, although seldom found on the oak, is not exclusively a parasite of other trees, and its 
rarity on the former not improbably led to the preference which the old botanists, as well as the Druids, 
gave to the Viscus quercus over the Viscus oxyacanthi, when these vegetables were held in much repute in 
medicine. Hence the very circumstance of a search being made for quercine mistletoe, in an age when 
these islands were covered with forests of oak, is opposed to the idea of the Loranthus being the plant in 
question : 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. 
The common mistletoe is slightly astringent, and is occasionally resorted to in our provinces 
as a cure for epilepsy or the falling sickness ; but trust in its sanative powers is at as low an ebb as credence 
in its moral efficacy. The all-health and the yule-log of the Druids are now only regarded as means of 
Christmas comfort for the old and pastime for the young. 
The berries of these plants abound in a viscid matter, from which bird-lime is often made. 
Old Gerarde declares that “the leaves and berries of Misselto are hot and dry, and of subtill parts : the 
bird-lime is hot and biting, and consists of an airy and watery substance, with some earthy quality : for ac- 
cording to the iudgement of Galen his acrimony overcommeth his bitternesse; for if it be vsed in outward 
applications it draweth humors from the deepest or most secret parts of the body, spreading and dispersing 
them abroad, and digesting them. 
With Frankincense it mollifieth malitious impostumes, being boiled with unslaked lime, or with Gagate 
lapide or Asio, and applied, it wasteth away the hardnesse of the spleen. 
With Orpment or Sandaracha it taketh away foule ilfauored nailes, being mixed with vnslaked lime 
and wine lees it receiueth greater force. It hath been most credibly reported vnto me, that a few of the 
