THE MISTLETOE. 
269 
present time more is known about its parasitism and the dissemi¬ 
nation and germination of its seeds than about its internal ana¬ 
tomy. The first published observations on the Loranthaceae ap¬ 
pear to have been made early in the last century by a French 
botanist named de Candolle. In a memoir on the subject written 
in 1830 he says: “ The strangeness of their vegetation, and the 
diversity of their forms make it desirable that hereafter the Lor¬ 
anthaceae should be less neglected, and I would urge all travellers 
and sedentary botanists in countries rich in Loranthaceae to 
have regard in their researches to the following points: note the 
species of tree on which are found each species of Loranthaceae; 
where the whole host plant cannot be observed, preserve pieces of 
it; note the mode of adherence to the host plant; gather the 
flowers and fruit which are rare in botanical collections and of 
which there are few figures and descriptions complete; note phys¬ 
iological experiments on the white mistletoe, the indifference to 
the vertical direction, the number of embryos in a seed, the direc¬ 
tion of the radical, etc.; prove whether the young ovaries present 
many locules or many ovaries.”* 
The distribution of mistletoe is usually attributed to birds—par¬ 
ticularly thrushes—which feed upon the berries and allow the 
undigested seeds to pass through the alimentary tract; or, as 
Reiche says of a South American mistletoe: “ The bird [thrush] 
is accustomed to sit upon a cactus thorn, and after eating the 
slimy part of the pericarp, to wipe off the sticky remainder on the 
nearby spines.”*)* 
Von Schrenk saysj that birds must have carried the seeds of 
Arceuthobium pusillum from the Mainland to Monhegan Island, 
Maine. 
A different method of seed dissemination in Razonmofskya 
robust a has been described by Dr. MacDougal.§ Here the scat- 
* de Candolle, A. P. Memoire sur la Famille des Loranthacees. Paris, 
1830. 
f Reiche, K. Ban und Leben der chilenischen Loranthaceae, Phrygilan- 
thus aphyllus. Flora, 93: 271. 10 August, 1904. 
t Rhodora, 1 . c. 
I MacDougal, D. T. Seed dissemination and distribution of Razouni- 
ofskya robusta. Minn. Bot. Studies 2 Series, pt. II, pp. 169-173, 1899. 
