It seems I write an article about mistletoe every year, but I do so for a couple of reason. Mistletoe continues to hold a place in our holiday celebrations, and I think it has such an interesting story. So here goes.

As the leaves are falling, we are beginning to see trees that have little green outcroppings up in the branches. These are mistletoe plants.

Aristotle (383-322 BC) thought that these growths just appeared out of nowhere. But one of his students named Theophrastus (320-270 BC) theorized that mistletoe grew from seeds. He further theorized that these seeds had actually passed through the bird’s digestive system, which enabled them to be deposited on the branch of the tree. Turns out Theophrastus was correct.

However, it was Pliny the Elder (23-70 AD) who recorded some to the history and customs associated with mistletoe. Pliny is someone to be trusted in this endeavor since he is remembered mostly for his sick beats on the first Eminem album…just seeing if you are paying attention. No, he was much better known for his encyclopedic Naturalis History (Natural History). These writings were the model for a collection of books we now know as the encyclopedia.

At the time of Pliny’s writings, oaks were considered to be sacred. Locals believed all of the energy from the oak tree was stored in those green mistletoe plants during the winter. Because of this, it wasn’t unusual for people to remove some mistletoe and bring it home in hopes that this concentrated life-energy from the large oak tree might protect their homes from harm.

Now that mistletoe was hanging in the house, from a beam or at the front door, we find the custom of kissing under the mistletoe beginning. It seems that this was considered to be a way to increase the fertility of those kissing. You can kind of see where they got there. There’s a cutting hanging in the doorway that was felt to contain great energy, so if you were trying to conceive a child, you can see how they could have thought a symbolic kiss under the mistletoe might help in this endeavor. Or it was started by boys trying to kiss their special someone… who knows. But we do know the tradition continues today…the kissing part.

Now let’s jump ahead a few thousand years to our local history with mistletoe here in Oklahoma. It seems that for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, the Women’s Congress of the Chicago World’s Fair decided that each state participating in the World’s Fair should have a unique floral emblem. While Oklahoma was not a state yet, they still planned on participating in the World’s Fair, so they began the process of selecting an official floral emblem.

Oklahoma Territorial Representative John Wimberly introduced a bill in the Territorial Legislature designating mistletoe as our official floral emblem. This seems like an unlikely choice, but he had his reasons. His theory was that even in the harshest of winters, the only greenery to be found anywhere as mistletoe. I am guessing it also had something to do with the ideals of endurance and resilience, but that’s just a guess. As you might imagine, there was some disagreement of a state having a parasitic plant as their floral emblem, but nevertheless, mistletoe prevailed.

Several years later, Bill Murray (Alfalfa Bill Murray) set out to move us away from a parasitic plant as our floral emblem to something that was more appropriate such as alfalfa. His efforts to dethrone mistletoe failed, but he did go on to become governor of Oklahoma.

Flash forward a few more years and we see Rep. Kelly Haney from Seminole in 1986 introducing a bill to crown the Indian Blanket as our official state wildflower. This wasn’t to remove mistletoe as the official state floral emblem mind you, just to give us an official state wildflower. The bill passed and there were over twenty Native American tribes represented at the designation ceremony.

In 2004, a law designating the Oklahoma Rose as our official state flower was signed into law by Gov. Brad Henry. So for those keeping score, we now have an official floral emblem, an official state wildflower, and an official state flower. But what about the plant itself? Is it really a parasitic plant?

Mistletoe plants come in both male and female plants with the female plants being the ones that produce the white berries. A variety of birds, including cedar waxwings and robins like to dine on those berries. When the eat the berries, they also eat the seeds, but the seeds pass through their digestive system unharmed and are then deposited on the branches of trees through their excrement. Interestingly, the Olde English word “mistletoe” seems to mean “dung on a twig.” So there’s that.

When the mistletoe is revealed in the fall with the falling leaves, you will notice that some trees have very few mistletoe plants while others seem to be a mistletoe breeding ground. This is pretty easy to explain.

As birds come to the tree to dine on the mistletoe berries, they also deposit some seeds. The more mistletoe, the more birds, the more depositing of seeds. This is why some trees seem to be covered in mistletoe.

As a parasitic plant, mistletoe draws all of its needed nutrients from the host tree. Typically, a little mistletoe in a tree doesn’t cause any harm, but large quantities can diminish a tree.

Control of mistletoe would typically involve pruning out the mistletoe plants, but this gets problematic for homeowners since the mistletoe is usually found high in the tree. While there is a product called Floral that can reduce berry production in mistletoe, timing of the application is critical. All this means that we just tend to live and let live where mistletoe is concerned.

If you do decide to harvest or purchase some mistletoe to hang above your doorway, be sure to wash your hands with hot, soapy water. And be sure to keep it away from pets and children since those berries are poisonous. See you in the garden! I’ll be the guy standing under the mistletoe…

You can get answers to all your gardening questions by calling the Tulsa Master Gardeners Help Line at 918-746-3701, dropping by our Diagnostic Center at 4116 E. 15th Street, or by emailing us at mg@tulsamastergardeners.org. Photo: Tom Ingram