Mistletoe

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It's Advent and in keeping with the season I thought I would talk about mistletoe. 


Mistletoe is not common here, (I think it's too cold usually) although this photograph was taken in our garden this morning as we introduced it. My sister lives in Somerset where this is a common plant and she sent me some berries which we rubbed into the fork of a branch in an apple tree. The plant is hemiparasitic and after getting going with it's own photosynthesis it taps into the supporting tree for water and nutrient and starts to grow. Sometimes the growth of mistletoe is so extensive that it kills the host tree. There are no berries on our plant - I hadn't realised that one needs a male plant and a separate female plant to get berries. It's a bit of a long term project as well as our small sprig has taken 7 or 8 years to get this far. A fertilised plant produces white berries which are poisonous.
The plant is propagated by birds. In the case of the indigenous mistletoe it is often the Mistletoe thrush which spreads the berries wiping it's beak to get rid of the sticky material in the berries which allows the plant to get a toe hold.

The berries are so sticky that they used to be made into a paste and used as bird lime to coat branches and catch small birds.
The plant was important in the Folklore of various regions. The Romans used mistletoe in their Saternalia celebrations and the plant was important in Nordic Folklore. The custom of kissing under the mistletoe seems to have been a relatively recent tradition from the early 19th Century. Snogging under the mistletoe has been the topic of a spat between Conservative politicians in this country this week with their different versions of how careful we should be with Covid infections over Christmas with our Health Secretary saying that we should "snog whoever we want"! Comforting to know that we are governed by people with grown up attitudes to the spread of a Pandemic.

Diary
The least productive night ever for camera traps. I don't know why but the weather was odd last night with frost and snow before midnight and then a thaw and rain until dawn. I heard the tawny owls again last night and there was a buzzard mewing close by this morning. I got good views of both a male and female bullfinch - easier to spot when the trees are leafless.








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