Carter LeFon, age 9, of Richmond, Virginia,  t

How does mistletoe grow?

You cannot grow mistletoe in a flower pot or plant it in a garden, For its roots will not grow in the soil. The plant needs more nourishment than it can soak up from the ground, Some of its food must be partly prepared, or digested, by some other plant, It enjoys life high in the air, Though it never grows a sturdy trunk to hold up its leafy branches:

Mistletoe invites itself to live on certain trees. Its sucker roots dig down and soak up the nourishment it needs from the wood, The uninvited guest grows bushy branches that hang down from the branches of its host tree, once established there, it may grow for years: Its delicate green foliage may almost cover the tree. But should the tree die, so does the mistletoe. For this pretty plant cannot support itself,

The leaves of mistletoe grow in twos, like pairs of fat, pale green fingers. The plant bears pale yellow blossoms, The little flowers fade and ripen into waxy, round white berries, The seeds from which new mistletoe plants can grow are inside those little white berries. But very few of them ever grow into new plants, For the job of getting a good start in life is very difficult for the mistletoe. It is no easy matter for the parent plant to set its seeds,in just the right spot for them to grow.

Most of the planting work is done by birds, The seeds that fall to the ground simply rot and decay. But some birds enjoy a snack of mistletoe berries on a cold frosty morning. The seeds are not digested with the meal. ‑They pass right through the birds body and out with the waste, Sometimes, they land right in the branches of a suitable tree. The best spot is in an angle between two branches. These lucky mistletoe seeds sends their sucker roots down through the bark and start to grow,

In Europe they have a thrush who is very fond of mistletoe berries. He is s neat fellow and when he has finished eating he wipes his beak, Sometimes a. seed is‑stuck to his beak and gets rubbed off with the wiping job, For a wash cloth this thrush may use the bark of an apple,,4ree, a poplar, willow, mountain ash or  mountain ash or oak. These are the favorite host trees of the mistletoe. A seed wiped into the bark of one of these trees is very likely to sprout into a new mistletoe plant.

We call the mistletoe plant a parasite which means that it dines at someone else's table. The food it takes does no great harm to its host tree and a thick cluster of trailing mistletoe can add beauty to an old apple tree. People have always loved the pale green foliage of mistletoe, For countless generations it has been part of the Christmas evergreen decoration. When you bring it into the house, do not put it into water, Hang it high over a doorway, You know the merry game to play with it. Everybody who goes under that door gets a kiss.