For those who missed the Mistletoe-themed BBC R4 programme on Christmas Day, it’s available on BBC iPlayer here (edited 28th Dec to add correct link): http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00wqj4n/Open_Country_Mistletoe/ Covering the Mistletoe Festival in Tenbury Wells, the Druid procession, mistletoe harvesting, and general mistletoe, er, stuff in apple orchards.  For those who want to listen again on the proper radio, or who can’t use iPlayer ‘cos they’re in the wrong country, it is being re-broadcast on Thursday 30th at […]

With Christmas behind us, there’s New Year to look forward to – which is the right time (naturellement) for mistletoe if you live en France. But we’ll have more about French New Year Mistletoe customs later in the week.  For now, here are a few links to stories about US mistletoe – including a seasonal  ‘shooting it down’ story.  Most of the mistletoe species used in America at Christmas grow rather high in the host trees, and shooting it down is […]

Mistletoe in England’s SE corner (i.e. Kent) was covered here last week so this week it’s the SW’s turn, with rare Cornish mistletoe turning up on TV. Mistletoe really is (and probably always has been) very scarce in Cornwall, so the thriving population at Cotehele,a National Trust property just on the Cornish side of the Tamar is particularly interesting.  I’m not sure how it got there – it could be a remnant population of mistletoe from […]

A few media reports today (Telegraph here, Science2.0 here) of yet more new species discoveries – there seem to have been a lot recently.  This time the reports are about some results from Kew expedition around the world.  And, unusually, there’s a mistletoe! Now, don’t get too excited – there are already 1300+ mistletoes around the world, so another one isn’t a surprise, but it is a rather satisfying story as the official version implies it was first spotted […]

Latest results of the 2010 Mistletoe Questionnaire are presented below.  We’ve now has over 300 responses (the figures below were saved at the 269 mark), but we still need more, so do take part if you haven’t already – and do pass it on to your friends.  (Q12, the free-form response, is now too long to present easily – there’ll be a summary of that in due course…) [slideshow]

Waitrose have, apparently, sold rather a lot of mistletoe this season.  240% up on last year already. Their Horticulture Buying Manager Sue Steptoe said “A kiss under the mistletoe is a wonderfully romantic Christmas tradition. This year sales have soared to such an extent we’ve had to get our hands on extra mistletoe to meet demand. We’ll be responsible for nearly half a million kisses by Christmas.” (If you want to buy from Waitrose visit one […]

What is it about Kent and Mistletoe? Since the recent National Trust news story highlighting the risk to mistletoe supplies due to the loss of old-style apple orchards I’ve been fielding regular enquiries from Kent newspapers and Radio journalists about the assumed loss of mistletoe there. And I always have to tell them that, actually, they’ve not lost much of it – as they never had much in the first place. The confusion arises because […]

How many mistletoes do you know?  There are about 1500 species around the world!  But, as this blog is written in the UK, it tends to favour the northern European mistletoe, Viscum album. That’s not just for geographic reasons: Viscum album is the mistletoe of legend.  The druidic traditions, Norse, Greek, Roman etc myths about mistletoe, are all derived from this one species. And, of course, this is the species the kissing custom is based […]

A quick follow-up to Friday’s posting on Where DO you get yours, to cover some more online/mail-order British mistletoe stockists: On Friday I said that “a few specialist websites, notably Tenbury English Mistletoe Enterprise (TEME), and InterMistletoe (who are Suffolk-based but sell Tenbury mistletoe)” can supply British Mistletoe. Here are two more:  Firstly TemeWork,  who appear to be taking advantage of the TEME (see above) brand, but are, to be fair, just using a url and site name established 4 years ago for generic Teme Valley […]

Further coverage of the long-term mistletoe harvest story this weekend, with the biggest feature in the Independent. But still there is some misinterpretation, either by the press or by commentators who mis-read the story.  One comment on the Indie coverage accuses the National Trust of irresponsible scaremongering in predicting mistletoe’s extinction.  Which would be a valid point if they were predicting its extinction.  But they aren’t. They’re predicting a future major problem in the supply of mistletoe – i.e. […]