Jonathan's Mistletoe Diary

Mistletoe Auction – last chance to see in cattle pens? 

Checked Mail on Sunday for the mistletoe article (see yesterday’s blog) but not there so either in Saturday’s paper or delayed until next week. That would be more appropriate – as it is December by then, and mistletoe articles in November always seem a bit premature. But i decide to check yesterday’s paper anyway – and check the daily mail website. Looks like the only way to access yesterday’s paper is to buy a week’s […]

Travelled up to Ironbridge today, for the same Council meeting of the Association of Industrial Archaeaology reported at start of last year’s mistletoe blog. As then, lots of mistletoe en route, and just as expected – but this time I had a mission in mind as I looked at it. I need some locations for a Radio 4 mistletoe interview next week – and will be starting out from the Shropshire/Worcestershire boundary area. Unfortunately I […]

Yesterday evening gave a msitletoe presentation to Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust – a good, satisfying evening – and a bit of a contrast to my last presentataion to a GWT audience – just 2 weeks ago. That was on canal restoration – a debate meeting jointly with the Gloucestershire Naturalists Society on the wildlife pros and cons of the local canal restoration (www.britishwaterways.co.uk/cotswolds). Reception there started with mistrust, and ended with a bit of it too. […]

Today was the first of this year’s mistletoe auctions at Tenbury Wells. I didn’t go today, but have got a bit more info on the ‘closure’ of the market. More after my visit there next week – but it definitely looks like this year’s markets will be the last of their type.

Not much mistletoe activity this weekend – but I did go out hunting for mutli-coloured berries. I’d been told there were some unusual colours on some plants just up the road. But don’t get too excited – we’re only talking differing shades of white here, not all colours of the rainbow. There is a red-berried mistletoe in Europe but that’s another species (Viscum cruiciatum) and only grows in Spain and Portugal. And there does seem […]

The mistletoe harvest – both in Europe and North America should be well underway now. Already had some circulars from growers in Texas announcing their new season is underway. (Texas is, of course, a centre for mistletoe growing in the States – but you knew that already) . Methods have changed over the years – the pic below is a Thomas Nast drawing from about 1880 – “Cutting mistletoe in the South”. Nast was an […]

The traditional European harvest has always been centred on northern France – where most of Britain’s mistletoe comes from. The pic below is a press photograph of about 1930 – showing harvest by costumed Normandy lads and lasses. There was an added incentive to harvest mistltoe in france – as its growth had been declared illegal in orchards – but in this pic they seem to have let it grow fairly large before harvesting – […]

The pic below is uncannily like the one above – same traditional costume, ladders and boxes – but motorised transport this time. This is taken from Le Pelerin, a French periodical, and is dated December 1932. Some fault with the jpeg here – reposted below….

French harvesting for Mistletoe – near Caen 1932 – click to enlarge