Mistletoe

Christmas season in the Northern Hemisphere lines up with the winter solstice, the darkest cold, gray days. Many Americans compensate for the gloom outside by creating a cheerful holiday scene inside: The fire dances, candles flicker, gold glints, silver glimmers, holly glistens, poinsettias pose. Lording over the merry panoply is the Christmas tree, spangled with lights, ornaments and tinsel, crowned by a shimmering star.

But lately I’ve noticed something missing from the December merrymaking: mistletoe. This poetic holiday adornment – a sprig of green leaves and white berries dangling over the door – is increasingly conspicuous by its absence, leaving many a rosy cheek un-kissed. Where is the love?

Heaven knows, humankind is a fickle lot. Yet mistletoe has been valued for millennia. The plant was prized by ancient Greeks, Romans, Celts and Norsemen for its purportedly magical properties. In those bygone days, people were rightly inspired by mistletoe’s season-defying vitality in the stark, denuded winter landscape. High in the treetops, it flourished on, a blaze of bright foliage and gleaming berries.

Druids believed that mistletoe banished evil and promoted animal and human fertility. Ancient Greeks thought it an aphrodisiac. Romans endowed it with healing powers. Later, truculent Vikings associated it with peace. When enemies happened to meet beneath a mistletoe-laden tree, they would lay down their arms and keep a truce for the day. Peace was given a chance.

Over time, another custom evolved. People would suspend mistletoe over a home’s entrance as a talisman of goodwill. The British upgraded the tradition to kissing under the mistletoe. Such a kiss, they thought, foretold marriage; mistletoe was the very symbol of magical holiday romance. Even if we moderns are sometimes suspicious of a cheeky Christmas kiss, what’s the harm in continuing to hang legendary greenery?

Some might complain that mistletoe, far from being the charming emblem of legend, is a parasite. Yes, the plant thrives by siphoning fluids from host trees, causing them to decline and fall. Its dense clumps are sometimes called “witches’ brooms.” Yet mistletoe is a parasite with benefits, more Robin Hood than Robber Baron. Scientists have even designated it a keystone species, meaning one that is crucial to its ecosystem.

Mistletoe’s berries and flowers are especially attractive to birds, who feed on its fruits and seeds and nest in its treetop thicket. These 2- to 3-foot whorls of stems and leaves are like an Airbnb for the avian crowd. Owls especially like mistletoe, but insects and discerning small mammals find it cozy as well.

In Australia, 75% of arboreal nesting birds live in mistletoe. Ninety percent of the endangered spotted owls in southwestern Oregon do the same. Rather than banishing mistletoe, conservationists are crusading to preserve the more vulnerable mistletoe species. But ours are plentiful in many Southern states.

So raise a glass to this oft-misunderstood natural benefactor – and put the mistletoe back atop the door where it belongs.