December 23, 1888. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
257 
THE TREE TOMATO. 
This name has very appropriately been given to 
Cyphomandra betacea, which, although not a true 
Tomato (Lycopersicum), nevertheless belongs to the 
same family, and is in many respects similar, as well 
as being allied. The foliage also possesses a peculiar 
though not very agreeable odour, which is quite distinct 
from that of the Tomato. The fruit is, however, not 
affected by this odour, or only to a slight extent, and 
is more palatable to the taste of many than is the 
Tomato until they have acquired a taste for it. In 
flavour it resembles the Tomato and appears very 
tempting to the eye. We have had inquiries respecting 
the plant from some .who have been interested in it and 
procured seeds, but who failed to fruit the seedlings 
during the first year. Being of a shrubby nature it must 
attain some size before it can flower. Although it will 
ultimately attain 12 ft. in height, it will flower very 
freely in pots when only 4 ft. or 5 ft. high. A green¬ 
house temperature is all that is necessary to fruit it, 
but if the house be kept a little warmer during the 
flowering period, so as to set the fruit, the chances are 
that the crop will be much better. 
It is a native of Brazil, and is largely cultivated in 
the West Indies, from whence seeds have been sent 
to the British colonies, all over the world, and else¬ 
where. Having been comparatively recently wrested 
from obscurity, it now forms a regular article of food 
in many of those countries where it may be planted 
out of doors, requiring no protection. In this 
country, however, it must necessarily be grown indoors, 
at least during the greater part of the year ; but this 
need not deter home growers who have the conveni¬ 
ence for adding it to the list of indoor fruits. The 
latter are orange-red, egg-shaped, about 2J ins. or 
3 ins. long, and produced in drooping clusters from 
the sides of the branches. We are indebted to Messrs. 
J. Carter & Co. for the use of the illustration which 
accompanies these notes. 
-->X<-- 
THE MISTLETO. 
A peculiar human interest clusters about the 
Mistleto. There are several species, but the one 
most familiar of the family is that known as Viscum 
album, a native of England, and a plant of great 
antiquity, growing abundantly on the Apple tree in 
the orchards of the southern and western counties. It 
is also found on the Hawthorn, and occasionally on 
the Oak, Lime, Elm, Fir, Willow, Walnut, Pear, and 
several other trees. It is one of the “mystic plants” 
—one of many that, in former times, and especially in 
superstitious eras, and amongst imaginative people, 
were invested with a mystical importance, and often 
held in veneration as sacred. Some have doubted 
whether flowers were ever worshipped, although no one 
has doubted their having been regarded as symbols, 
and introduced as such in religious ceremonies. 
The Mistleto is a parasite, and cannot exist apart 
from some other member of the vegetable kingdom. 
“It is a plant,” said Lord Bacon, “utterly differing 
from that upon which it groweth.” The common 
name—Mistleto—is supposed to be derived from mistl 
(different) and tau (twig), and to have been given to 
this shrub from being so unlike the tree it grows upon. 
The Mistleto is regarded as the only true parasitical 
plant indigenous to Britain, as at no period of its 
existence does it derive any nourishment from the 
soil, or decayed bark, like some of the fungi. Let any 
one during the Christmas season examine a branch 
of this singular plant, and he will find that it is an 
evergreen, the branches numerous and forked, covered 
with a smooth bark of a yellowish green colour, the 
leaves tongue-shaped, entire, in pairs, upon very short 
foot-stalks. The flowers are male and female in 
different plants, axilary, and in short, close spikes. 
Neither male nor female flowers have a corolla, the 
parts of fructification springing fiom the calyx. The 
fruit, a globular, smooth white berry, covered with a 
viscous substance, appears in winter. The root 
insinuates its fibres into the woody substance of the 
tree upon which it grows, and thus derives its 
nourishment. The whole forms a pendent bush of 
from 2 ft. to 5 ft. in diameter. It is not unusual to 
see Mistleto growing on trees, though the sight is 
much more common in the southern, western, and 
Cyphomandra betacea. 
home counties than in those that are more northern. 
According to the Scandinavian mythology, Balder, 
the Apollo of the North, was rendered by his mother 
(Friga) proof against all injury by the four elements— 
fire, air, earth, and water. Lok, the evil spirit, 
however, being at enmity with him, fashioned an arrow 
out of Mistleto, which proceeded from neither of the 
elements, and placed it in the hands of Hoder, the 
blind deity, who launched the fatal dart at Balder, and 
struck him to the earth. The gods decided to restore 
Balder to life, and, as a reparation for this injury, the 
Mistleto was dedicated to his mother, Friga ; whilst, 
to prevent its being again used adversely to her, the 
plant was placed under her sole control so long as it did 
not touch the earth, the empire of Lok. On this 
account it has always been customary to suspend 
Mistleto from ceilings ; and so, whenever persons of 
opposite sexes pass under it, they give one another the 
kiss of peace and love, in the full assurance that this 
plant is no longer an instrument of mischief.—Folkard’s 
Plant Lore. 
This is a very interesting legend. We place ever¬ 
greens among our church decorations as symbolic of 
everlasting life, and white flowers at weddings are held 
as types of purity ; but the Mistleto is rigorously 
excluded from our places of worship, although it is the 
emblem, according to the old Norse religion, of peace 
and love. 
The use of Mistleto in Christmas decorations dates 
back to a period anterior to the introduction of 
Christianity. Then it was a mystic plant, having a 
deeper meaning and a more emphatic language than 
with us. Schow, in his Earth Plants and Man, says 
“It is not a matter of surprise that a plant of such 
peculiar aspect, and which occurs in such a remarkable 
position as the Mistleto, should have awakened the 
attention of various races, and exerted influence over 
their religious ideas. It played an especially im¬ 
portant part among the Gauls. The Oak was sacred with 
them ; their priests abode in oak forests ; oak boughs 
and oak leaves were used in every religious ceremony, 
and the sacrifices were made beneath an oak tree ; but 
the Mistleto, when it grew upon the oak, was peculiarly 
sacred, and regarded as a divine gift. It was gathered 
with great ceremony on the sixth day after the first 
new moon of the year. Two white oxen, which were 
then for the first time placed in yoke, were brought 
beneath the tree ; the sacrificing priest (Druid), 
clothed in white garments, ascended it, and cut off the 
Mistleto with a golden sickle ; it was caught in a 
white cloth held beneath, and then distributed among 
the bystanders. The oxen were sacrificed, with prayers 
for the happy effects of the Mistleto. A beverage was 
prepared from this, and used as a remedy for all poisons 
and diseases, and which was supposed to favour fertility. 
It is also a custom in Brittany to hang the Mistleto 
on the roof on Christmas Eve ; the men lead the 
women under it, and wish a merry Christmas and a 
happy new year. Perhaps the Mistleto was taken as 
a symbol of the new year, on account of its leaves 
giving the bare tree the appearance of having regained 
its foliage.” 
Thus the practice of decorating dwellings with 
Mistleto and Holly is undoubtedly of Druidic origin. 
Dr. Chandler states that, in the time of the Druids, 
the houses were decked with boughs in order that the 
spirits of the forest might seek shelter among them 
during the bleak winds and frosts of winter. Among 
the Worcestershire farmers there is a very ancient 
custom of taking a bough of Mistleto and presenting 
it to the cows that first calved after New Years’ Day, 
as this offering is presumed to avert ill-luck from the 
dairy. In Holstein the peasantry call the Mistleto 
the “spectre’s wand,” from the supposition that a 
branch borne in the hand will enable the holder not 
only to see ghosts, but to compel them to speak. In 
the West of England there is a tradition that the cross 
was made of Mistleto, which, until the time of the 
Crucifixion, had been a noble forest tree, but was 
thenceforth condemned to exist only as a mere parasite. 
Culpeper, an old authority on medical botany, 
remarks that it was sometimes called lignum sanctce 
crucis —wood of the Holy Cross—from a belief in its 
curative virtues in cases of consumption, apoplexy, and 
palsy—“not only to be inwardly taken, but to be hung 
at their neck.” In Sweden, Oak Mistleto is suspended 
in the house to protect it from fire and other injuries ; 
a knife with an Oak-Mistleto handle is supposed to 
ward off the falling sickness ; for other complaints a 
piece of this plant is hung round the patient’s neck, or 
made into a finger-ring. 
The Mistleto can be propagated artificially upon the 
Apple tree by making a slight incision in the bark on 
the underside of a branch and rubbing some seeds into 
it, doing this when they are fully ripe, or in early 
spring. The great danger is of birds finding the seeds 
and eating them. The operator has to wait a year or 
so before the seeds germinate. Some nurserymen 
propagate the Mistleto upon standard Apple trees in 
this way, and sell them as trees bearing Mistleto. 
They adopt the practice of placing the berries under 
the bark about the month of December, when they are 
quite ripe ; but the operator must not always expect 
the growth to issue from the point where the seeds 
were buried. The roots of the embryo plant will some¬ 
times run for a distance between the inner bark and 
the soft wood of the branch, and the plant appear in 
quite unexpected places. The tree operated upon 
should be quite healthy, as the Mistleto dies off when 
the tree or branch on which it lives becomes diseased. 
E. D. 
-—■$'- 
The Bringeavood Pippin Apple. —This is one 
of the seedlings raised by Thomas Andrew Knight, 
and is still one of the best late-keeping dessert 
varieties in cultivation, though presumably on account 
of its small size is not nearly so much grown as it 
deserves to be. It is said to be the result of crossing 
Golden Pippin with the Golden Harvey, and in size 
and general appearance resembles the Yellow Ingestrie, 
while the flesh is yellowish, crisp and sweet. It is an 
undeniably good keeper, and on this account is much 
appreciated by Mr. Miles, at Wycombe Abbey, who 
regularly keeps it until after Dumelow’s Seedling has 
been finished. 
