December 22, 1887, ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
537 
NOTES ON THE MISTLETOE. 
The Rev. F. H. Arnold contributes the following to the current 
number of “ The Naturalists’ Monthly,” and as it possesses especial in¬ 
terest at this season, we reproduce the substance of the article: — 
It has been truly observed “ that the Mistletoe is a most interesting 
plant, whether we regard its history associations or its manner of growth.” 
Each one of these particulars has given rise to long and learned dis¬ 
cussions, and there is much relating to it which needs further investiga¬ 
tion. 
These notes may not be unseasonable at Christmas, when one of its 
uses is in especial requisition. In days of vore, as Scott, in Marmion 
reminds us :— 
“ England wag Merry England when 
Old Christmas brought his sports again. 
****** 
The damsel donned ber kirtle sheen, 
The ball was dressed with Holly green, 
And forth to the wood did merry men go 
To gather in the Mistletoe.” 
First, let us re-examine its history—especially in connection with 
'the trees on which it grows, as a parasite. The Mistletoe, the Oak, and 
the Druids are associated from the most remote period of our annals. 
The plant itself is mentioned in the ancient Sagas, and was considered 
■sacred to Freyn, the Saxon Venus. The derivation of the term is gene¬ 
rally supposed to have been from the Anglo-Saxon word “ Misteltan,” 
but this cannot be affirmed with certainty, and, as every reader of 
English history knows, Pliny in the sixteenth book of his “Natural His- 
"tory has given on account of the ceremonies of the Druids when they 
removed it annually from the Oak, about the middle of March ; parts of 
"this relation are quoted in the many school books. I shall not hesitate, 
however, to repeat the words of Pliny, not vouching for the accuracy of 
the translation, as I have not the original by me. Pliny, it may be re¬ 
membered, was a contemporary of Vespasian and Titus. His statement 
as this:— 
“ The Druids hold nothing in greater veneration than the Mistletoe 
and the tree on which it grows, provided only that it be the Oak. They 
■select groves of Oak trees standing by themselves, and perform no sacred 
■ceremonies without green Oak foliage. Indeed, they firmly believe that 
whenever the Mistletoe grows upon the Oak it has been sent from 
heaven, and consider it a sign of a chosen tree. But the Mistletoe is 
rarely found upon the Oak. When it is discovered they collect it with 
very great devotion and ceremony, and especially on the sixth day of the 
moon. This period of the moon’s age, when it has sufficient size with¬ 
out having attained the half of its fulness, makes the beginning of their 
months and years.” 
The grand ceremony of cutting the Mistletoe from the Oak was the 
New Year’s Day festival of the Ancient Britons, and it was held on the 
■sixth day of the moon, as near the 10th March as the age of the moon 
permitted. They lead up to the tree two white bulls, and begin by 
tying them by their horns to the tree. The Arch-Druid then mounts 
the tree and cuts the Mistletoe with a golden sickle. It is caught as it 
falls in a white cloth. Then they offer up the victims as a sacrifice, 
praying that the gift might be prosperous to those to whom it was pre¬ 
sented. The animals were killed, cut up, and cooked ; meantime prayers 
were offered up, hymns were sung, and the heaven-born plant, thus 
■carefully saved from pollution by any touch of the earth, was distri¬ 
buted in small sprigs amongst the people, as a sacred relic for the new 
year, a panacea against every disease, a remedy for poisons, and a safe 
protection against witchcraft and the possession of the devil. 
As to the virtues, real or imaginary, possessed by the Mistletoe there 
must be considerable doubt. There can be no question, however, that 
the chief virtue ascribed to Mistletoe from the Oak by the Druids was 
the “ fructifying quality,” as Taliesin has it, “or of giving fertility to 
all animals,” as described by Pliny, and it was for this virtue, when 
•worn as an amulet or drunk in infusion, that the sprig of Mistletoe was 
•so anxiously sought from the hands of the Arch-Druid on the New Year’s 
Day festival. The next point is, why did the Druids especially venerate 
the Oak ? Was it on account of the extreme infrequency of the occur¬ 
rence of the Mistletoe on that tree ? This seems the most probable 
reason, and it is certain that in modern times such a find is of extreme 
rarity. 
. T> r - Bull has carefully collected and authenticated all the known 
instances of the Mistletoe growing upon the Oak. Besides those he 
mentions in Herefordshire, which are but two, he gives us an Oak at 
Badam’s Court, Ledbury Park, near Chepstow; one at Burningfold 
Farm, neariGodalming, in Surrey ; another near Basingstoke ; and one at 
Plymouth—in all only seven instances of the Mistletoe living upon the 
■Oak in England. One or two more have since been added. 
I myself have only once seen a branch of Mistletoe attached to an 
Oak bough. It was brought to Petworth Rectory about forty years ago 
from Northchapel in the Weald of Sussex, and hung up in the great 
hall of the rectory as a curiosity, where it long remained. As the Weald 
•of Sussex—the Anderida of the Romans—was formerly covered with 
Oak, it may have been one of the chief seats of Druidical worship. It 
has been thought by some that this was the case with Kingley Yale, 
near Chichester. This abounds with Yews, many of them of extreme 
age, and in their midst were, and perhaps still are, some very ancient 
Oaks beneath which the Druids may have sacrificed. Some of the finest 
■examples of the Mistletoe which I have observed in Sussex have been at 
Funtington, on Lime trees near the house of Admiral Wallis. These 
bave been noted by many persons. It has been also observed in great 
luxuriance on Limes at Versailles. 
In Hampshire, according to the recently published Flora of that 
county, Mistletoe is not common, and in the Isle of Wight it is very 
rare, if not extinct. . Wise, the great authority on the New Forest, says, 
“ I have never seen it on the Oak. It is abundant on the Apple trees 
in the forest keeper’s garden at Boldre Wood.” In the British Museum 
Herbarium there are two specimens, one labelled “ from the Oak near 
\\ incliester, 1870,” and another “ from an Oak in Lord Bolton’s Park, 
at Hackwood, 1861.’’ At Selborne, Hursley, Andover, and elsewhere 
in Hants it is met with chiefly on Apple trees and Thorns. In Sussex 
the Mistletoe is abundant in some of the larger parks, as at Parham and 
Cowdray, but in parts of the eastern division of the county it is rarely 
met with. 
“ on e of Colepeper’s MSS. at the British Museum, in a curious 
notice of Sir Peter Freschville’s house at Stavely, Derbyshire, is this 
passage ‘ Ileare my Lord Freschville did live, and hcare grows the 
famous Mistletoe tree, the only Oake in England that bears Mistletoe.’ 
and to this tree the following letter, written between 1663 and 1682, 
from the Countess of Danby to Mrs. Colepeper, probably refers :— 
“ ‘ Dear Cozen,—Pray if you have any of the mistleto of yor father’s 
oke, oblige me so far as to send sum of it to yor. most affectionat servant, 
Bridget Danby.’” Let us hope that tie countess’ desires were fulfilled 
in all respects. 
Why the Mistletoe should attach itself to certain trees in preference 
to others is a problem not yet solved. According to a census given by 
Sowerby, the following is a table of the comparative frequency with 
which trees are prone to bear Mistletoe :—Oak 1, Sycamore 1, Acacia 1, 
Willow 2, Maple 3, Lime 4, Whitethorn 10, Poplar (mostly black) 20, 
the various kinds of Apple 25. There can be no doubt but that the 
favourite site of the Mistletoe is the Apple tree, and it seems to be 
especially attached to the order Rosaceas, since it occurs not only on the 
Apple but on the Pear, the American Crab, the Medlar, the Mountain 
Ash, the White beam, as has been observed at Harting, the Whitethorn, 
and even on a humbler member of the family, the Dog Rose. 
As regards the custom of kissing under the Mistleto"! I would refer 
those who wish to know the origin of this to “ Notes and Queries,” 
where the subject has been fully discussed in the first volumes of the 
series. 
In the British Flora the Mistletoe is the only representative of the 
order Lorantliaceae. It comes next to the Dogwood, and is followed by 
that curious little plant, the Moschatel, one of the prettiest of the tiny 
flowers of the spring. Its botanical description in full would be a some¬ 
what difficult one. A succinct account of it may be thus given. The 
stem is forked, with sessile intermediate heads of about five flowers. 
The flowers are dioecious, the barren ones with a corolla of one petal in 
four deep equal segments. The fertile ones with four petals, deciduous. 
The berries are globular, smooth, sticky, and juicy, one-celled, white, 
pellucid, sweet to the taste, and when boiled they make the best bird¬ 
lime, their glutinous property being formerly well known in country 
districts for catching small birds. It seems now almost disused, because 
perhaps boys, although eager to ensnare them, will not take the pains to 
make it. It is not so, however, with the London birdcatchers, some of 
whom I lately met with in the Stansted woods, artfully trying to catch 
unfortunate cock chaffinches. They had been very successful, and in¬ 
formed me that bird-limed straws were a certain method of capturing 
them, a stuffed chaffinch being placed above them. From the Latin 
name of the Mistletoe, Viscum album, we get the term viscid, and the 
missel thrush is also supposed to have been so called either as specially 
feeding on its berries or as being an especial propagator of the Mistletoe 
by carrying the berries from one tree to another. Why, however, it is 
thus distinguished from others of the Merulidae, most of which are very 
fond of berries, has not yet been satisfactorily explained. 
The mode in which the Mistletoe establishes itself in the tissue of 
other plants is very remarkable, and has been well described by De Can¬ 
dolle in his excellent “ Physiologie V6'dtale.” Old botanists believed 
that birds feeding upon the berries, and getting their beaks surrounded 
with the viscous matter they contain, rubbed their beaks against the 
branches to get rid of it, and thus introduced the seeds to their resting- 
place, and in this they are prohably correct. Careful botanists who 
have examined the process of growth in these plants from their earliest 
stage tell us that from whatever cause the seeds are brought in contact 
with the wood of the tree on which they establish themselves, they ad¬ 
here by means of the glutinous substance in which they have been em- 
b dded, and which hardens into a sort of transparent glue. Then two 
or three days after application the tiny radicle may be seen pushing 
towards the support, whether it be on the under or upper surface ; 
reaching this point it becomes enlarged and flattened. It now has the 
appearance of a sucker, and by degrees penetrates the bark. This 
operation requires some time, and is not completed until the plumule 
begins to be developed. By the time the young plant has a pair or two 
of leaves the attachment will be found tolerably firm. 
In propagating the Mistletoe I have known various failures. Per¬ 
sons have put berries in crannies in the bark, and stopped th<-m in with 
earth, and tried other methods without success. It may, however, be 
done in a very simple manner. A successful cultivator, a gardener, 
writes :—“ I frequently tried incising the bark and placing the berry 
therein, and had as frequent failures. However, seeing one day a spar¬ 
row, after pecking at a piece of fat bacon, fly away and proceed to clean 
its beak by wiping it on the bark ot a tree, it occurred to me that the 
propagation of the Mistletoe was outlined in the sparrow’s performance. 
Accordingly, at Christmas ensuing, having some young Apple trees in 
my garden, I moistened the end of my thumb, and therewith cleaned 
