In the UK, a small sprig of mistletoe, ideally with a few berries on it, is hung over doorways to encourage people to kiss - or so it seems to me. The Tenbury Wells mistletoe fair used to be the main market for wholesalers to flood the market with this parasitic plant. Much has been made in the past few years of how little home grown mistletoe there is and how this is due to the dearth of mistle thrushes and the clearance of old orchards.
However it is thought awful to use french mistletoe, as that lacks berries.
Hmmm. We have 3 clumps of mistletoe in our wood (it doesn't need to grow in orchards). The one high in the Rowan tree is covered with berries but is a good 35 foot above the ground in a very spindly tree. The other two clumps are on hazel coppice and therefore close to the ground, but not old enough yet to produce berries (I gather 5 years of growth is required). The better one is shown here.
The poplar plantations that you see in the area are often covered with huge balls of mistletoe. In part this is a sign of poor management of the plantation as the mistletoe "roots" damage the wood. We were commenting to a friend about all the mistletoe around but that it was so high in the trees, and she said that the way to get a good big ball of mistletoe, was to get a hunter, early in the hunting day, to shoot a ball out of the tree for you!
A seasonal thought that!
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