Kiss under the mistletoe, it will bring you good luck for the new year. Roland Motte, our gardener, enlightens you on this plant considered a parasite.
Mistletoe is a well-known tree parasite. But you probably don’t know everything about this plant, which since ancient times has been quite a symbol. And it’s Roland Motte, the gardener of France Bleu Sud Lorraine and France Bleu Besançon, who explains it to you.
Mistletoe, a parasitic plant of trees
Mistletoe is also called white mistletoe, Sainte-Croix wood, glue, verquet, blondeau, apple tree green, the cork. It is also called deciduous mistletoe, although it can also be found on conifers. You know viscum album, that’s its Latin name. It is a species of parasitic plant which will grow on the trees and which will attach itself thanks, not to roots, but to suckers. It is a plant considered as a parasite and even as a hemiparasite, because it mainly takes the raw sap of its host plant. It is also able to make chlorophyll, since it has leaves, including in winter. And in principle, mistletoe does not attack the cells of the parasitized tree, even if it reduces the quality of the wood.
Toxic to humans, beneficial to birds
Viscum album is native to temperate regions of Europe, although it is also found in Australia. Its fruits appear in winter, they are toxic for humans, but the fruits are highly appreciated by certain birds, in particular thrushes, blue tits, nuthatches. They are the ones who will scatter the mistletoe from here and there with their droppings. They will feed on the berries of the mistletoe and go from tree to tree, that’s how the seeds will germinate on other trees.
– Roland Motte
Mistletoe traditions
The mistletoe was harvested by the druids at the time of the Gauls, with their golden sickles on the oaks, because they attributed many symbols and many properties to it. It had another benefit is that it symbolized renewal, good health and luck. There is a legend by the way. It seems that when enemies met under a branch of mistletoe in the forest, they had to lay down their arms and observe a truce until the next day. That’s where the tradition comes from of hanging a mistletoe ball over the door and, as you know, kissing under it on New Year’s Eve.
Find Roland Motte on France Bleu Lorraine and France Bleu Besançon and on his website www.rolandmotte.fr.