| Show SPIRIT OR SOUL OF THE OAK mysterious Myrter loua mistletoe otoe growing from sturdy tree looked upon by druies druids ao an holy thing HE mistletoe season draws near many boughs or pendants pennants pend ants of this mysterious and add beautiful plant will be torn from oaks and other trees and suspended from chandeliers and doors doom many myths are associated with the mistletoe the druids druies of britain looked upon it as a holy tiling thing to them the oak tree had a strong lous significance and seeing the curl ous plant growing out of the oak they conceived that it was the spirit or the soul of that tree in this way it Is believed that the druids druies came to regard the mistletoe as the symbol of life and they therefore treated it with manifest reverence and gave it a prominent place in their religious rites it Is also believed that the dru ids held the mistletoe as sacred to fraya the goddess of love and that this Is how it came to be associated with love making and kissing the old herbalists herba lists the forerunners of the physician regarded the mistletoe as a thing having remarkable therapeutic properties it was held to be good for epilepsy and for various convulsive distempers dis tempers many of our british and our irish ancestors believed that the mistletoe was a charm against disease the mistletoe Is a plant parasite and yet not altogether a parasite though it would rather live off of the tree it was the means of self support it fastens itself upon its host penetrates its tissue and draws nourishment from it often deforming it and sapping its vitality yet the mistletoe Is a green leafy plant that Is it possesses po the green clament pl ement ament chlorophyll which gives the green color to normal vegetation the presence of green leaves indicates that the mistletoe has the power which independent green plants everywhere poss possess esz of constructing ting organic foodstuffs such as starch out of inorganic compounds carbon dioxide and water utilizing sunlight as the source of energy in the pro process ces it Is therefore only partly a parasite so far as dependence upon its host for food Is concerned but it Is none the less harmful on that account aej A hJ |
