In the land of the mistletoe...

It's four days before Christmas, so it seems like a good time to make use of my mistletoe photos. Usually, mistletoe is perched way up in large trees, where I can't really get a good look at it. But last weekend, on a mountainside in Provence, I for the first time found myself almost face-to-face with a clump of mistletoe that had colonized one of the small oaks native to Provence.

Everyone is familiar with the Christmas tradition of kissing beneath the mistletoe. I can remember seeing wan little sprigs of the mysterious plant packaged in cellophane offered for sale around the holidays back in the U.S. But I'd never seen a whole plant, nor did I know anything about it. Perhaps that's because I lived in the Midwest. On the West Coast, it seems there are both a native species of mistletoe as well as the European one.

But when I came to France, I saw mistletoe (Viscum album) everywhere. A hemi-parasite of many different tree species, including apples, oaks, beech, and other hardwoods, it forms an almost perfectly round clump about 1-2 feet across in the crown of the tree. In winter, evergreen mistletoe is visible in tree silhouettes from afar. Untreated trees will often become infested with many mistletoe plants which, left unchecked, can kill the tree.

Mistletoe is considered a scourge in the apple orchards of Normandy and Brittany, but much of this plant pest is harvested every holiday season and sold in Paris floral ships or exported to the U.K. There's even a special tool called the coupe-gui that consists of a hooked blade attached to a long handle, especially for cutting clumps of mistletoe (gui in French) out of trees.



Right now, at Christmastime, female mistletoe plants in France are covered with glistening white berries, a fact I never really appreciated until my face-to-face encounter with it. The attractive white berries and narrow, oval, evergreen leaves make it an obvious candidate for holiday decoration. However, the traditions surrounding mistletoe at the end of the year go back to pre-Christian times.

Mistletoe was a sacred plant for the Druidic people in both Europe and Great Britain, revered for promoting fertility and protecting from evil spirits. But what about this kissing tradition? The way I learned it, if you were "caught" with someone under the mistletoe, you had to kiss them. This could be a useful tradition if you were a young adolescent in the 50's or 60's. Another, more rigorous tradition insists you must kiss your beloved beneath the mistletoe precisely at midnight on New Year's Eve, thus ensuring health and prosperity for the ensuing year.

Theories abound as to the origin of these traditions. But one of the most picturesque is derived from a Gallic legend dating from the time of the king Gwydyr. He had three daughters, all of whom were betrothed. Their true loves were about to leave to go to war, and were bidding farewell to their ladyloves in the shadow of ancient oak trees loaded with sacred mistletoe. The young men demanded a token of love from their ladies, each of whom removed a peacock feather from her hair to offer to her fiancé. "Another," demanded the gentlemen. Each girl then removed the holly sprig which had held the peacock feather in her hair and offered that. "Again," begged the men tenderly. As the girls had nothing left to give, they offered a kiss to their fiancés--a kiss beneath the sacred mistletoe.

I have read that in Provence, however, mistletoe is considered a sinister plant, and it is never included in that region's rich Christmas traditions. Certainly from the host tree's point of view, mistletoe is not good news. Mistletoe is spread when the berries borne by the female plants are devoured by birds and then excreted.

The berries are full of a sticky mucilage, and they stick to tree branches after passing through the bird's digestive tract. The seed germinates on the bark of the tree, and sends root-like structures called haustoria through the bark and into the tissue of the branch. There, the haustoria absorb water and mineral nutrients from the tree. Eventually, the haustoria become massive and woody, and can represent over half of the wood of a branch in cross-section.

While I've been writing about a single species of mistletoe--the one common and endemic in Europe and Asia, there are over 400 species in the Viscaceae worldwide and another 600 in the related Loranthaceae, many of which are loosely referred to as "mistletoe".

Interestingly, mistletoe was the cover plant on the December issue of Herbalgram magazine this year, which contained an interesting review of both traditional medical uses of Viscum album and other species, as well as recent studies investigating its bioactive compounds. Seems that the Druids weren't so far off. Modern research is starting to corroborate traditional medical uses of mistletoe, which may indeed be beneficial for disorders of the immune and female reproductive systems. Even more interesting, some mistletoe compounds may have potent anti-cancer potential, and have already been commercialized.



Meanwhile, be aware that mistletoe berries can be toxic. If you use mistletoe as a holiday decoration, remove the berries first if you have small children around the house. But by all means go ahead and indulge in whatever form of the mistletoe kissing tradition you like best! Happy Holidays!

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