preparations of " misseltoe" both as external and
internal remedies; and Culpepper remarks:
"Why that should have the most virtue that
grows upon okes, I know not, unless because
it is rarest and hardest to come by; and our
college's opinion is in this contrary to Scripture,
which saith, 'God's tender mercies are all over
his works;' and so it is, let the College of
Physicians walk as contrary to him as they like,
and that is as contrary as the east to the west.
Clusius affirms that which grows upon the
pear-trees to be as prevalent, and gives orders that
it should not touch the ground after it is
gathered, and also saith that being hung about the
neck it remedieth witchcraft." The Italian
physician Matthiolus praised the mistletoe as a
remedy for epilepsy, and even as lately as the
reign of George the First, the plant was extolled,
and Sir George Colbatch published, in 1719, a
Dissertation concerning Mistletoe, recommending
it as a specific in that malady. Pliny says
the Druids called it all-heal, and he closes his
account of their practices by quaintly moralising:
"So vain and superstitious are many
nations in the world, doing oftentimes such
foolish things as these." The mistletoe is found,
when growing on the apple, to contain twice as
much potash, and five times as much phosphoric
acid, as the tree itself, and when parasitic on
the oak its bark is astringent. Now-a-days,
however, it has lost its renown as a medicine,
and the magical properties ascribed to it by
Virgil, and other ancient poets, are remembered
only as bygone superstitions.

The Celtic name of the mistletoe was gwid,
gue, or guy; the name by which it is still
called in France, le gui, being evidently but a
slight alteration. Borlase, in his Antiquities of
Cornwall, says that the Druids gathered the
plant with great solemnity near the close of the
year, saying, "The new year is at hand, gather
the mistletoe;" and even now, in some parts of
France, the peasant boys go about asking
coppers, and crying, "A guy l'an neuf;" while
in the upper part of Germany, the people, about
Christmas time, run from door to door in the
villages, shouting "Guthyl, guthyl!" which, he
adds, "are plainly the remains of the Druidical
custom." The name by which the plant is
known in most parts of Germany, is der mistel.
The people of Holstein call it "the branch of
the spectres" (Marentakken), from the belief
that holding a branch of the mistletoe in the
hand would not only enable a man to see ghosts,
but also to speak to them.

The mistletoe is very widely distributed over
our globe. Thumberg says that the parasitic
Cape mistletoe (Viscum capense) was disseminated
everywhere on the branches of the trees
by the birds eating plentifully of the berries.
Kalm mentions finding a fibrous mistletoe
(Viscum filamentosum) in abundance in Carolina,
which he says the inhabitants make use of as
straw for their beds, for packing brittle articles,
for adorning their houses, and as fodder for
cattle. Our common mistletoe, he says, grows
on the sweet gum-tree, or tupelo, and on the oak
and lime, rendering their summits in the winter
beautifully green. Colonel Mundy often
mentions the mistletoe of Australia, hanging from
the trees in abundance, and, like a vampire,
seeming to exhaust the life-blood of the plant on
which it fixes its fatal affections. This writer
says: "Depending from some of the larger
gum-trees were the most enormous mistletoes I
ever saw. One or two of the clusters of this
parasite were so uniform in shape as to look like
a huge chandelier of bronze, for that was their
colour, hanging plumb down from some slender
twig."

The mistletoe-bough, with its yellowish green
leaves and clear white berries, is not
unfrequently to be met with in the winter woods,
or on the trees of gardens or orchards in the
south of England. It is found growing on many
different trees, but is more common on the apple
than any other, and very rarely to be found on
the oak. Ray mentions the oak, hazel, and apple
as the trees on which this parasite chiefly fixes;
but adds that it may be found also on the pear,
hawthorn, common maple, ash, lime, elm, and
service-tree. Sir William Hooker and Dr.
Arnott mention that it occurs in Gloucestershire
on the common maple, and in Bedfordshire on
lime-trees and locust-trees. It also grows on
cherry laurels in gardens. Mr. Dovaston planted
the mistletoe on twenty-three trees, but most of
the young plants died early, particularly when
planted on the gum-bearing trees, thriving well
only on the oak, the apple, and the hawthorn-trees.
Some poplar and lime-trees, however, in
Surrey, have been completely destroyed by
mistletoe growing upon them. Mr. Dovaston
remarks that he never saw the mistletoe growing
well on the oak but once, and that was in Anglesey,
in the park of Lord Uxbridge, hanging—
singularly enough—almost over a grand Druidical
cromlech. The Society of Arts, having some
years ago offered a premium for the discovery of
mistletoe on the oak, had a specimen sent to
them from an oak in Gloucestershire; and
Mr. Jesse mentions having received a piece of
mistletoe from an oak near Godalming, in
Surrey.

The mistletoe is a true parasite, for no one
has ever yet succeeded in making it take root in
the earth. Mosses and lichens are often
popularly called parasites; but in reality they are
nourished by the moisture of the air, or by the
soil lying in the crevices of the bark. But the
mistletoe inserts its roots into the very
substance of living vegetables, and the experiments
made on it confirm the opinion derived from
observation, that the tendency of a root is always
towards the centre of the object on which it
grows, and that the young shoots invariably take
the opposite direction. Dr. Darwin ingeniously
accounted for this on the principle that the leaf-bud
was stimulated by air, and the roots by
moisture, and that, therefore, each elongates
itself where it is most excited. If the berries
of the mistletoe, when fully ripe, are pressed
and rubbed on the smooth bark of almost any
tree, they will adhere closely, producing plants