Abstract
WHEN the leaves are rotting on the ground, and the fruit has been converted into cider, the orchards of Herefordshire and Worcestershire still retain something of their verdant hue, and are green with what seems at first to be untimely foliage. But mistletoe cannot be unseasonable at Christmas, and there are those who would be glad to have it in season “all the year round.” The supply from the West Midland Counties is practically inexhaustible, for it has been calculated that from 30 to 90 per cent, of the apple-trees are infested by this parasite, two or three boughs of which may sometimes be seen dependent from some old cankered limb. Its presence is at once the cause and the sign of incipient decay. A struggle for life between the tree and its enemy has begun, and, if the pruning-knife or the demands of Christmas do not interfere, the mistletoe will slowly and surely exhaust the branch upon which it grows, penetrating further and further into the wood as the supply of sap recedes, and ever sending forth fresh roots in place of those which were overpowered at first. The severity of the struggle between these seemingly unequal foes may be sometimes seen in the strange fantastic contortions into which the branches twist themselves, and sometimes in the withered aspect which the whole tree wears when, as Shakespeare says, it stands
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Mistletoe . Nature 1, 214–215 (1869). https://doi.org/10.1038/001214a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/001214a0