A Stroll Through the Garden: Mistletoe evergreens and a childhood memory

So, have you got all the kids together for the annual night drive through the town where you look at all the lights and decorations? When I was a kid, the closer we got to Christmas my parents would take us and invite our friends to get together and drive through the neighborhoods and gawk at the decorations.

At the end we would all come into our house and have some hot chocolate. My parents would have some mulled cider and we just talked.

The beauty of the season is amazing. But you know, I also felt like Charlie Brown in the movie special called "A Charlie Brown Christmas" when Charlie said, “I just don’t understand Christmas.” No one really explained much to me as a kid, so I enjoyed the gifts, the food and the love. I really did not know why.

Most of us have hung evergreen wreaths on our doors and not really known why. The ancient Germans held that the wreaths were used as a symbol of continuity and sustained life in the bleak winter. Romans hung evergreen wreaths on their doors to represent victory. Some Christians hang evergreen wreaths on their doors to invite the spirit of Christ into their home. There are many more traditions than just these.

The mistletoe legend predates Christ. The Greeks were known to use it as a cure for everything, including spleen disorders. Pliny the Elder, who was also a noted naturalist, reported that it could be used as a balm against epilepsy, ulcers and poisons. The Celtic Druids in the first century put the romantic overtone to this plant. Because you can find mistletoe in bloom even during the frozen winter, the Druids came to view the flower as a sacred symbol of life.

In Norse mythology, Odin’s son Baldur was prophesied to die. His mother Frigg, the goddess of love, went to all the animals and plants of the natural world to secure an oath that they would not harm her son. Frigg neglected to consult with the unassuming mistletoe. Loki schemed to make an arrow out of mistletoe and killed the invincible son of Odin. Almost all of the gods got together and resurrected Baldur and it was so.

The goddess of love was so pleased with her son being saved that she declared that this humble plant would become the symbol of love. The basic early custom was that a young man could steal a kiss from any woman caught standing under the mistletoe and refusing was viewed as bad luck. This led to the view that if you kissed a maiden under the mistletoe, there would be good luck next year for the young man and marriage for the maiden.

I think my radio show host in Loudonville had the most interesting memory of mistletoe. He was a preacher’s kid and wound up moving often. One Christmas he found himself in the little town of Manchester, Ohio, which is between Cincinnati and Portsmouth on the river. There is a long stretch between bridges along the river, but there are ferries.

His grandpa was visiting the family for Thanksgiving, but he had a Christmas chore he wanted the kids to be involved in. They would all take a ferry to Kentucky, and they had to bring along a shotgun. “What was the shotgun for grandpa?” was what the kids asked. He said, “You’ll see.” They all got on the ferry and took the station wagon to see if they could find their quarry. Mistletoe can be found in the tallest branches of trees.

This plant is considered a parasite and is poisonous. Maybe this is why Loki used the mistletoe to shoot at Baldur. Every part of eastern mistletoe or Phoradendron leucarpum is poisonous and different from the mistletoe in Europe.

Grandpa and the kids got back in the car in search of their quarry after the short ferry ride over the river. Well, they did not drive for very long and found the mistletoe high up in the trees. They knew they found their quarry because the only green thing in all of the trees were these green plants high up in the trees. Imagine that the only thing that was green in that forest about this time of year was the mistletoe.

Grandpa loaded the shotgun, drew a bead on one of the branches where some of the mistletoe was growing and “BOOM.” The branch with the mistletoe hit the ground. Grandpa sent the kids out to gather the branches and they put them in an old feed sack. After a good day of hunting, they wound up with four sacks of mistletoe.

There are 1,500 members of the mistletoe family all over the world. Toxicity varies between the different species. The evergreen leaves of this parasite are photosynthesis effective even in winter, which also means that their stems are effective all year. One of the unusual species of mistletoe is so vigorous that they can take over the host plant in many cases.

Foliage of the mistletoe is quite different from the hosts, which means that as the host dies the living parasite becomes the green on the plant and will look like it became a new plant. What I find interesting is that this new plant that took the life of the first now supports a different group of organisms.

Merry Christmas! Hope you have a great stroll through your indoor or outdoor garden and remember to feed the birds. If you have any challenges, let me know at ericlarson546@yahoo.com. I shall be putting this column on a blog linked to ohiohealthyfoodcooperative.org. Thank you for participating in our column.

Eric Lawson of Jeromesville is a veteran landscaper and gardening enthusiast and a founding board member of the Ohio Chapter of Association of Professional Landscape Designers.

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: A mistletoe history lesson and a childhood memory