MISELTOE ON THE OAK. 
129 
but inasmuch as I believe that this tree, about which so much has 
been said, exists in print alone, and as the motto of every natural- 
ist is ''truth above all things," I go on to enquire on what 
foundation rests the assertion of our having the so-called Plymouth 
oak. It is evidently the one statement of Mr. Edwin Lees, a 
gentleman of some deserved reputation as a British botanist, copied 
from one work into another. Having myself failed to find the 
tree in the locality named, I in 1866, wrote to Mr. Lees on the 
subject, asking him if he would favour me with further particulars 
respecting it. He kindly gave me all he could, saying that so far 
as his memory would then serve him, the locality where he, five 
years previously saw the mistletoe, was in a grove of oaks near the 
first station of the South Devon Eailway from Plymouth. He did 
not remember the name of the station, but he perfectly remem- 
bered stopping, and close to the station were a number of very tall 
but not large oaks. Mr. Lees added, "when out on a ramble I 
generally peer among trees, and in my Botanical Looker Out, have 
mentioned all the difi'erent trees on which I have seen Viscum 
album growing. I was therefore incited to look closely into these 
oaks which struck me as remarkable, being so thin and tall, and 
among the topmost branches of one of them a bush of mistletoe 
was clearly discernible, and to be quite certain I gazed upon it 
again and again. It was not a large bush, and appeared old and 
partly denuded of leaves. Possibly it may have since died away, 
for it had a scraggy aspect, though its branches would remain for 
some time even if dead. I must remark that it was very high up 
in the tree, and would require a sharp eye to distinguish it. The 
tall grove of oaks," continued Mr. Lees, '' must remain no doubt ; 
and among the trees of that grove it may be worth while carefully 
to look, but high up among the topmost branches." 
This is the evidence I possess respecting '' The Plymouth Oak," 
and its mistletoe, and I think most who read it will come to the 
same conclusion as I have, viz., that Mr. Lees was mistaken, and 
that what he regarded as the parasite was perhaps a small mass of 
withering ivy, the sickly green remnant of an otherwise leafless 
bush, or else some abnormal development of a branch of the oak 
itself, akin to the "witch-knots" sometimes seen on the birch and 
the silver fir. What makes this all the more probable is the fact of 
its being so unlikely that we should have mistletoe on the oak in 
this neighbourhood, where I believe it is never found in a wild 
