Not everything on the homestead has to be utilitarian. I find mistletoe beautiful & a little mystical. Right now it has both fruit and flowers. It's the perfect time to seed new trees
Seeding mistletoe
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Not everything on the homestead has to be utilitarian. I find mistletoe beautiful & a little mystical. Right now it has both fruit and flowers. It's the perfect time to seed new trees
Very cool. It’s a plant I seldom see these days tbh. Not sure whether geographical location has anything to do with that but it would be great to spread it around like this!
I was driving through a back water of the Somerset levels the other day and the trees were festooned with little Orbs of mistletoe that from a distance looked like giant Baubles.
Do any other tree plants have such a parasitic type life cycle?
Do any other tree plants have such a parasitic type life cycle?
?
Loads in Somerset, it grows all over the orchards. We have a ridiculous amount in W. Sussex which wasn’t there when I was younger, I’d guess not even a few years ago. Some trees are obviously dying from the amount in them.
This is what I’d call a mid/large sized amount in an infested tree. I’ll stop and grab a few pics of some trees that are being killed. I’ve ceased to like the stuff, it’s becoming a problem.
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About 25 years ago mistletoe suddenly appeared in southwest Finland, now at around 250 locations. Before that it was unknown during written history.
A certain thrush species is strongly under suspicion of importing that foreign plant species ...
A certain thrush species is strongly under suspicion of importing that foreign plant species ...
I got really interested in mistletoe this winter. I've been driving from South Wales to Cheltenham once a week and it's like through a mistletoe gradient. It doesn't grow anywhere in my borough but it appears once I drive down off the mountain. By the time I get into Gloucestershire it's everywhere, including in the middle of the Cheltenham. I assume it has a preferred climate niche and doesn't like the altitude here but it might start creeping up as the climate warms. I'm tempted to find a sheltered spot and see if I can get some established.
I once spoke at the Ludlow Mistletoe Festival. This required a little research.
Apparently the two main dispersal vectors are thrushes and blackcaps. The seeds pass through the thrush but are wiped from the beak of the blackcap - I’m told.
I’d be interested to see research into the correlation between Mistletoe success and populations of those two birds.
If there are more blackcaps it would indicate that the traditional way of crushing a berry into a small nick is the way to go. The old folk used to say look for the side of the branch the mature plants are “rooted”. They also seem to thrive best where there is litchen especially on apple.
If there are more thrushes it might indicate that some form of stratification could be useful before inserting.
……. or not.
Apparently the two main dispersal vectors are thrushes and blackcaps. The seeds pass through the thrush but are wiped from the beak of the blackcap - I’m told.
I’d be interested to see research into the correlation between Mistletoe success and populations of those two birds.
If there are more blackcaps it would indicate that the traditional way of crushing a berry into a small nick is the way to go. The old folk used to say look for the side of the branch the mature plants are “rooted”. They also seem to thrive best where there is litchen especially on apple.
If there are more thrushes it might indicate that some form of stratification could be useful before inserting.
……. or not.
This distribution map was shown in one of the latest review papers on mistletoe. It probably reflects apple growing distribution quite well too.
Apple growing? Unlikely. No concentration in Kent. Unless you mean wild crab apples, but I have doubts about there being enough of those anywhere to be significant.
Round here: Shropshire/Hereford/Worcester Mistletoe grows as much on lime as it does on apple. It proliferates there because it’s often very high up and hard to reach.
There is a massive Mistletoe festival/ wholesale market for Mistletoe and holly in Ludlow come December. A lot of that will have grown in lime.
Famously (says Pliny) it could occasionally be found on oak but I’ve never seen that and I don’t know anyone who has.
There is a massive Mistletoe festival/ wholesale market for Mistletoe and holly in Ludlow come December. A lot of that will have grown in lime.
Famously (says Pliny) it could occasionally be found on oak but I’ve never seen that and I don’t know anyone who has.
I think if you are introducing and it takes off that for the good of all plant species you control it. That could benefit you as you can sell off the fruits at Xmas for a little bit extra. An honesty box and some bundles of cut mistletoe?
I think anything that overtakes a tree and is killing it needs to be cut back before it does for the tree. We see trees covered in ivy round here so that most of the leaves are the ivy. It is the same thing in that those trees are as good as dead when the ivy takes control. I personally would rather see the tree than parasitic or hemi-parasitic species killing it.
In the past orchards with Mistletoe were managed so the plant did not take over. IIRC you can get special bladed hooks on the end of a long pole to do the cutting in some areas. I saw something on TV about traditional mistletoe management and cropping. I think they limited the growth to a few clumps on each mature tree.
Up near Lancaster my parent got a clump on either an apple or a greengage about 15 years ago. I had never seen it growing before then. They had quite a few Thrushes but they always did before the Mistletoe turned up so I do not think there was a real link in that plant appearance. I did recall a blackbird wiping a berry off its beak once on the trees in that garden. Definite blackbird as it was a character and interacted with us it was so relaxed around us. It is funny how you can actually identify particular birds occasionally
.
As an aside I once heard, and saw it too, a blackbird do a call that sounded like an old fashioned telephone ring many decades after anyone I knew had such a phone. It was at Bolton Abbey area in yorkshire and I guess the person living in the house had a mobile phone with it as a ringtone for it to learn the call.
I think anything that overtakes a tree and is killing it needs to be cut back before it does for the tree. We see trees covered in ivy round here so that most of the leaves are the ivy. It is the same thing in that those trees are as good as dead when the ivy takes control. I personally would rather see the tree than parasitic or hemi-parasitic species killing it.
In the past orchards with Mistletoe were managed so the plant did not take over. IIRC you can get special bladed hooks on the end of a long pole to do the cutting in some areas. I saw something on TV about traditional mistletoe management and cropping. I think they limited the growth to a few clumps on each mature tree.
Up near Lancaster my parent got a clump on either an apple or a greengage about 15 years ago. I had never seen it growing before then. They had quite a few Thrushes but they always did before the Mistletoe turned up so I do not think there was a real link in that plant appearance. I did recall a blackbird wiping a berry off its beak once on the trees in that garden. Definite blackbird as it was a character and interacted with us it was so relaxed around us. It is funny how you can actually identify particular birds occasionally
.
As an aside I once heard, and saw it too, a blackbird do a call that sounded like an old fashioned telephone ring many decades after anyone I knew had such a phone. It was at Bolton Abbey area in yorkshire and I guess the person living in the house had a mobile phone with it as a ringtone for it to learn the call.
