Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Mistletoe

MISTLETOE (Viscum album, L.), a species of Viscum, of the family Loranthaceæ. The whole genus is parasitical, and seventy-six species have been described; but only the mistletoe proper is a native of Europe. It forms an evergreen bush, about 4 feet in length, thickly crowded with (falsely) dichotomous branches and opposite leaves. The leaves are about 2 inches long, obovate-lanceolate, yellowish green; the diœcious flowers, which are small and nearly of the same colour but yellower, appear in February and March; the fruit, which when ripe is filled with a viscous semitransparent pulp (whence birdlime is derived), is almost always white, but there is said to be a variety with red fruit. The mistletoe is parasitic both on deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs, and &ldquo;it would be difficult to

say on what dicotyledonous trees it does not grow&rdquo; (Loudon). In England it is most abundant on the apple tree, but rarely found on the oak. The fruit is eaten by most frugivorous birds, and through their agency, particularly that of the thrush (hence missel-thrush or mistle-thrush), the plant is propagated. (The Latin proverb has it that &ldquo;Turdus malum sibi cacat&rdquo;; 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 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. See Loudon, Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, vol. ii. p. 1021 (1838). The mistletoe so extensively used in England at Christmas tide is largely derived from the apple orchards of Normandy.