As it’s that time of the year I wanted to write a festively themed piece to close the blog out for the year. My subject isn’t actually a tree, but it is a woody plant and it’s one that almost everyone will see at Christmas.
Mistletoe (Viscum album) is one of our most mysterious native plants. Evergreen and semi-parasitic (it can only be found growing on and exploiting other species but does photosynthesise through its green leaves), it appears to grow whilst being separated from the earth. Mistletoe species have a long history of cultural and magical use throughout the world, though it is us British that seem to have really taken it to heart, with mistletoe becoming one of our most recognisable symbols of the Christmas season. Around this time much mistletoe is imported from France, Belgium and Germany for sale here, and our very own famous botanist the Reverend Keble Martin described seeing a deck full of mistletoe on a cross channel ferry in 1895. He recalled that the French were puzzled as to what we did with it - “Did we eat it?” they asked.
Mistletoe growing on a local rowan
One of mistletoe’s peculiarities is that it seems to like the company of humans and is most often found on cultivated or managed trees. Apples (but not the wild crab apple) are its favourite host, with hawthorns, limes and poplars also popular. Despite common belief it is actually rarely found on oak and is almost never encountered in woodlands. Its favoured habitats are gardens, orchards or parklands. Our photo is of a growth of mistletoe on rowan, an unusual host species!
The plant itself is actually rather uncommon in Devon, with the last national survey of the plant finding only 1% of all UK sightings within Wales and the west of England located here. I personally only know of one plant in our parish, this being on an apple tree in a local garden, although I have also spotted a few large mistletoe bunches hanging in a poplar tree in the neighbouring town of Topsham, and there are also a few trees that host it in Exmouth, including some in a horse chestnut at the top of Gipsy Lane. No doubt there are other examples of mistletoe tucked away in gardens around the county.
Rossetti’s Hanging the Mistletoe, 1860
Despite its rarity on oak trees the Roman writer Pliny described how the druidic priesthood of the Celts would send a white robed priest to cut it from oak, using a golden sickle and catching it on a white sheet before it hit the ground, so that its magical power wouldn’t drain away – you may even have come across this tradition in cartoon form if you have ever encountered Asterix & Obelix! The plant seems to have an association with fertility, with our tradition of kissing under the mistletoe being a faint echo of that.
One of the reasons for mistletoe’s close association with humans is that it is quite often spread deliberately by people. Apart from ourselves, birds are most likely to be its other main vector of propagation. They are partial to its sticky berries (hence mistle thrushes, said to be named after their liking for mistletoe). The sticky berries are excreted by birds or are wiped from their beaks onto branches, where they may then eventually take root. It can be quite readily introduced on your own trees by mimicking this process as follows:
Pick the berries in February if you can (or keep them in a shed after Christmas until then) and introduce them into a small slit on a reasonably sturdy branch (at least 3” diameter). Try and plant as many berries as you can because many will be eaten by snails or birds; it may be worth trying to secure the berries to the bark by some method. You will need to grow more than one plant if you want berries in the future. Sit back and wait and within two years you will hopefully be rewarded by seeing an initial green shoot, which will subsequently develop into the familiarly shaped pair of mistletoe leaves. It will then take some years to develop into a plant big enough to harvest. If the plants are then pruned to stop them getting too big they shouldn’t have too much of an impact on the health of the host tree. Choose a favoured species as a host - apples are the most obvious choice.
Here’s hoping you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year and get at least one kiss under the mistletoe...
Graham
