Mistletoe

As I am confined to home for the next few weeks while my ankle heals,  I decided to write a post about a Christmas plant.  Mistletoe is often hung inside houses at Christmas and the tradition is that if you meet someone underneath it, then you kiss, (though I am not sure if this is allowed in Covid times!)  

Mistletoe (Viscum album) does not grow locally as this distribution map from the BSBI website shows:

It is most common in southern England and I have seen it on apple trees in the South West and very abundantly near London, in Bushy Park (by Hampton Court) where the trees are liberally festooned with round green clumps, which are easily seen in the winter when the trees are bare. It is spread by birds eating the white berries which leaves their beaks sticky and they wipe off the sticky seed onto a tree branch where it might grow.  Mistletoe is semi-parasitic, depending on the tree for nutrients but also able to photosynthesise as it has green leaves.

Mistletoe features in Norse myths, which is surprising as it does not seem to like Northerly districts and only grows in Southern Scandinavia. One story says that the mischievous god Loki used mistletoe to kill Baldur when all other plants had sworn not to harm him.

If you are interested in Norse Myths, there is a dramatisation of Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology on Radio 4 on Christmas Day 2021 and it will be available for a short time afterwards:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001rjt