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Encyclopedia Britannica



MISTLETOE 1 (Viscum album)

This article appears in Volume V18, Page 616 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MIC-MOL
MISTLETOE 1 (Viscum album) , a species of Viscum, of the botanical family Loranthaceae. The whole genus is parasitical, and contains about twenty species, widely distributed in the warmer parts of the old world; but only the mistletoe proper is a native of Europe. It forms an evergreen
bush
 , about 4 ft. in length, thickly crowded with forking branches and opposite leaves, which are about 2 in. long, obovate-lanceolate in shape and yellowish-green; the dioecious
flowers
 , which are small and nearly of the same colour but yellower, appear in February and March; the white
berry
  when ripe is filled with a viscous semi-transparent pulp (whence bird-lime is derived). The mistletoe is parasitic both on deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs. In England it is most abundant on the apple-tree, but rarely found on the oak. Poplars, willows, lime, mountain-ash, maples, are favourite habitats, and it is also found on many other trees, including
cedar
  of Lebanon and
larch
 . The fruit is eaten by most frugivorous birds, and through their agency, particularly that of the species which is accordingly known as missel-thrush or mistle-thrush, the plant is propagated. The Latin proverb has it that " Turdus malum sibi cacat "; but the sowing is really effected by the bird wiping its beak, to which the seeds adhere, against the bark of the tree on which it has alighted. The viscid pulp soon hardens, affording a protection to the seed; in germination the sucker-root penetrates the bark, and a connexion is established with the vascular
tissue
  of the first plant. The growth of the plant is slow, and its durability proportionately
great
 , its death being determined generally by that of the tree on which it has established itself. The mistletoe so extensively used in England at Christmas is largely derived from the apple orchards of Normandy; a quantity is also sent from the apple orchards of Herefordshire.
Pliny (H. N., xvi. 9295; xxiv. 6) has a good deal to tell about the viscum, a deadly parasite, though slower in its action than ivy. He distinguishes three genera." " On the fir and
larch
  grows what is called stelis in Euboea and hyphear in
Arcadia
 ." Viscum, called dryos hyphear, is most plentiful on the esculent oak, but occurs also on the robur, Prunus sylvestris and terebinth. Hyphear is useful for fattening cattle if they are
hardy
  enough to withstand the purgative effect it produces at first; viscum is medicinally of value as an emollient, and in cases of tumour, ulcers and the like. Pliny is also our authority for the reverence in which the mistletoe when found growing on the robur was held by the Druids. Prepared as a draught, it was used as a cure for sterility and a remedy for poisons. The mistletoe figures also in Scandinavian legend as having furnished the material of the arrow with which Balder (the sun-god) was slain by the blind god Hoder. Most" probably this story had its origin in a particular theory as to the meaning of the word mistletoe.


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