Mistletoe

 

 A knowledgeable horticulturist can recognize a tree from a great distance, a skill that comes with observation based on branching, bark type and color as well as canopy shape. Honing this skill is best done at this time of year since you can always wander up and find fallen leaves near by to confirm or deny your hunch. As much as I like playing the game of tree identification, I also like looking for that anomaly. Be it a twig nest versus leaf nest or witches broom (cluster of small branches usually caused by a virus) versus mistletoe. The hint of green and density of a mistletoe cluster is pretty obvious. Botanically known as Phoradendron leucarpum, translated from Greek origins, phoreo - to bear, dendron - tree and leucarpum - white fruit. Our local species has several common names, the American, Christmas or oak mistletoe, the latter since it is often found on oak, but actually uses many types of trees as hosts. Mistletoe can be found growing as far north as New York, but it is not nearly as common in its northern range. I am always delighted to find it, if for no other reason than to re-affirm its diminishing existence in Northern Virginia.

Technically mistletoe is a shrub that is hemiparasitic which means that it's not a full blown parasite, it can produce its own chlorophyll and support itself, sort of. The fruit is white and the pulp is very, very sticky. After a bird eats the fruit, it will spend time wiping the stickiness off of its bill (hence attaching seed to tree bark) and/or the subsequent bird dropping will also remain sticky, leaving the seed up on a branch. Each white berry (or drupe) contains 1 seed which can survive for about a year as a young plant, before it needs to find sustenance from its host. As roots grow they reach deeper into the tree, penetrating the cambial layer or bark, searching for that flow of sap.

Historically the fruit as been used to treat various conditions, Cherokee tribes used a "tea ooze" to bathe the head for a headache and infusions for high blood pressure and lung problems. More recent, and highly controversial usage is with the European mistletoe, used to inhibit tumors, raising the immune defense response, particularly in breast cancer patients. The truth is that people have died from ingesting mistletoe berries, which is why any plants you find for sale during the holidays often have the berries removed, replaced with plastic ones. 

The custom of kissing under the mistletoe comes to us from Scandinavian mythology, a Norse goddess of love, named Frigga, is a long and convoluted story which ends in the mistletoe berries becoming symbols of love and fertility. An exert from the American author Washington Irving explains it simply here from the book "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon" written in 1820:

"The mistletoe is still hung up in farm-houses and kitchens at Christmas and the young men have the privilege of kissing the girls under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. When the berries are all plucked, the privilege ceases. "

 If not for winter and deciduous trees, plus the allure of such an odd plant, mistletoe might be better suited for Valentine's Day.