Mistletoe Blog 2003
(apologies for the mixture of formats - this 2003 material is from an older version of the site)

A brief account of mistletoe matters, as experienced by Jonathan Briggs in the weeks before Christmas 2003.  All entries © J Briggs.

Most recent entries are at the top.  Click here to go to Day One 

Well, so much for the media coverage - a very mistletoe-lite Christmas.  But today saw the results of a mistletoe master-stroke by the National Trust's press office.  They announced, yesterday, the discovery of a 'new' mistletoe bug in Britain.  The species, Hypseloecus visci, is known from mainland Europe but was recorded as a new British species by NT surveyors earlier this year.  Matthew Oates of the Trust's survey team revealed that it was recorded at both Barrington Court and Tintinhull Gardens in Somerset.

This is good PR for the NT's natural history credentials and draws well-deserved attention to their excellent biological recording team - it's a pity that other land-managing agencies don't have similar teams.  

Though the story seems remarkable, it isn't quite as unusual as it sounds.  The NT survey team regularly find new records - it's not that hard if you try hard enough (but most outfits don't).  And the media fall for this every time, if it can be made 'sexy' enough - and the mistletoe link certainly gives this story something different (would it have made the press if it was a new British species, 3mm and coloured black if it lived on groundsel? I think not).  And of course the media have short memories.  It was only a couple of years ago that the same NT team reported another mistletoe first - finding the mistletoe weevil (Ixapion species, can't recall the specific name without looking it up) as a new British species.  This too was known from the Continent, and so was just sitting waiting to be found - but no-one had actually looked before.  The moral is, if you want a new species record, find a habitat or plant that isn't often sampled, and look very carefully.  

Back in the 19th century this was easier - when a new mistletoe bug was described in France in the 1880s the gentlemen naturalists of Herefordshire soon went on a hunt for it, recording it as common in local mistletoe within a few months.  Today, without the gentlemen naturalists with time on their hands, we need to rely on thinly-spread specialist survey teams.  But how much more would we know if we still had the dedicated amateurs as well?

The NT media promotion made BBC TV news, the Independent and the Scotsman -  and maybe more that I'm not aware of of.   Just goes to show how a bit of perfect timing and an unusual story can make the press sit up.

Last Saturday before Chrimble and still no mistletoe features in the media.  Have they finally tired of it?  Surely not.  Must keep an eye on all the papers in the next few days.

The Guardian leader did mention mistletoe yesterday - but only in the context of the Holly Berry scare, expounding on the 'hard to comprehend' (shurely shome mishtake?) concept that a shortage of berries makes the price go up.  You'd have thought the good old Grauniad would be able to grasp this concept easily   

But no, and to compound the lunacy they suggest that holly might become "another rarity like the once abundant mistletoe".  Such is the stupidity of the media - no informed source has ever suggested that mistletoe was "once abundant" only that it might be rarer than it was.  The "once abundant"  concept is an invention of the media, perpetuated by the media.  Mistletoe is still (relatively) common where it was common, and (relatively) rare where it was rare.  I should know.  Ho hum.

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Sunday 14th December 2003

Off on a mistletoe walk up through Standish Hospital grounds, through Standish Woods and back to Stonehouse.  Standish H is one of those NHS gems - a hospital in parkland, with 1930s wards, peacocks in the grounds and real patient pleasure and high recovery rates.  The Gloucestershire NHS Trust, ever mindful of MONEY (not health??), are closing it, so that patients can all go the Royal, a skyscaper full of disease in Gloucester City Centre.  No peacocks or parkland, but a view of the railway sidings if you can actually get out of bed.  Otherwise, just the sky.

But I digress - must get back to the mistletoe.  First stop is Welch's Farm, adjoining the entry drive.  An old orchard here is full of mistletoe - and last year there was a stepladder in the trees, suggestive of seasonal harvest.  No such luck this year, when armed with digital camera - but see pictures on right.  Mistletoe festooned apple trees, set amongst the caravans - a Farm sideline is caravan storage.

We continue up the hospital drive, through the ornamental maples - also with small mistletoe growths - see pic, though you'll need to look closely..., and past more apples, including crabs (see pic), these without mistletoe (it does like eating or cider apples best - and has a rather snobbish dislike of crab apples - don't know why).

Once into the hospital grounds proper we're in a mini-arboretum, though mostly of mistletoe-unfriendly trees - especially the big cedars (see pic) - no mistletoe in these.

But there are the peacocks  - see them while you can as they're all being transferred to other parks in Gloucestershire as the hospital prepares for closure.  They used to be quite tame, but today they're very wary of us - perhaps because they're gradually being caught and removed.

We counted at least 3 - the pics show them strutting the tarmac outside the NHS buildings, and, more photogenically, on the lawn.  We'll miss them when they've all gone - their calls are a distinctive feature of the neighbourhood, easily heard from our house.

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The hard copy of the Biologist finally arrives this morning.  Am pleased to see the mistletoe review article has made the 'front page'.  (see graphic right - to get a copy of the article go to http://www.iob.org/ and follow the links).

A laid-back day of mistletoe trivia - sorting out filing and collating info on the markets so far this year.  The apparent abundance of mistletoe seems to have led to low prices this week at Tenbury - reports suggest it was only making 50p per pound, compare to the usual £1.   It's the monthly Farmers' Market here in my home town (Stonehouse) and I briefly investigate mistletoe prices there  -  £1 a sprig/branch.  But that's retail of course - the 50p per pound weight is a wholesale price, so prices here are probably about right.  Didn't see many people buying though.

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Overcast, and the rain gets worse and worse as I drive across to Enfield - the M40 and M25 are not nice places today.  This journey may not be particularly productive anyway - our press event for today has effectively been cancelled and monitoring work will need to be done from the ground (see yesterday's entry).

When I eventually turn up at Enfield Lock (late 'cos of the weather, plus a broken down car at Enfield Lock Station' s level crossing) I'm just in time to see the local BW staff leave for their Christmas Party, leaving me, Mary Norden (BW London Ecologist) and Kate Griffin (BW Press Office) to look for mistletoe seedlings in the trees.  It's probably just as well that the press aren't coming, as it's a very grey, very rainy day, and not good for photos.  There's little Christmas romance in gazing up at grey branches which might have tiny mistletoe seedlings silhouetted against an equally grey sky.  

We soon realise that today's bad luck is continuing - we're not going to be able to spot the mistletoe seedlings from the ground.  So the monitoring will have to wait.  Having surveyed the offending lorry (see yesterday's entry) I'm not entirely convinced we couldn't have squeezed the cherry picker in after all - but it's too late for that now.  The only thing left to do is drive back home...

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More prep for the monitoring event in London tomorrow.  But will the press will go for it - they seem more interested in Holly this year!  A shortage of berries on holly - attributed to the dry summer, is pushing up prices, and at yesterday's auction at Tenbury, holly took the limelight.  This morning it's made The Times leader column and BBC Radio4 Today programme.  Yesterday R4 Today were asking about an interview with me about mistletoe, but now they don't seem so keen - one evergreen a week seems to be sufficient!  (But it's a good year for mistletoe berries - which is surely worth reporting - but maybe shortages make better news?).

And there's more bad news about the arrangements for tomorrow.  The plan was to take a 'cherry-picker' (a mini-crane suitable for tree work) alongside the trees in Enfield where we had sown berries back in February.  The idea is to see whether they have germinated and survived, information needed for the London Biodiversity Plan.  The press were invited along as it would be an unusual photo story with a mistletoe flavour.  The trees are in British Waterways' (BW) yard at Enfield Lock - so the story is being handled by the BW press office.

But we have a crisis - there's a broken down lorry parked on the narrow hard-standing under the trees, and apparently it can't be moved (for mechanical reasons not entirely clear to me).  This means we can't get our cherry-picker close enough and we have a problem...  This was to be the main monitoring event for the 2003 plantings - and so this'll need to be rescheduled for sometime in the new year.  Which is annoying but manageable.  The more immediate problem is the press - what will we show them?.  The invitations went out days ago.  We decide to cancel the photo-opp - and so the BW press office spend the day putting the press off, instead of encouraging them - which is unusual for them.

There is still the basic story, just not the photo-opp - information on the press release, and accompanying request for waterside mistletoe sightings can be found here.

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Sunday 7^th December 2003

In Dorset – no TV in our caravan so can’t check what the BBC coverage from Tuesday is.  Find out later it was a short feature on BBC2 Breakfast soon after 6.00, with interview, and then headlines about the mistletoe market at every half-hour.  Don't know what the News 24 coverage was.

But Caroline and I are off on a mistletoe hunt, nothing strenuous, just a quick review on a beautifully clear (and cold) day to check some sites already known, and investigating one possible ‘new’ (to me), site.  Dorset isn’t a mistletoe-rich county but there are scattered colonies in back gardens and historic houses – probably largely intro’d by man – but that makes them even more interesting – who intro’d them and when.

First site is a big roadside lime at Sandford, just by the school entrance.  Yes, it’s still there, and looking well – a small plant a couple of years back but looking better now.  We’re slightly worried to see that many of the oaks adjoining on the same side are marked with red paint, and there a home-made sign warning that they’re to be felled next week.  This suggests some sort of imminent widening scheme (cycleway?, roadwidening?) – and there may be a risk to the mistletoe tree – though it is set a bit further back than the marked trees.

Onwards to the ‘new’ site – which needs investigation on foot.  This is at Henbury House, near Sturminster Marshall, where the 1:25,000 map marks an avenue of trees on the driveway.  This looks a perfect setting for mistletoe, which is often found in the limes of driveways of country houses.  We investigate from the public footpath that crosses the drive near the house.  Off across the fields from the main road and the house is soon in view .  Caroline is the first to spot mistletoe – in tall trees, probably limes, at the top of drive near the house. 

So far so good (see pictures).  But is that all there is?  When we get there the ‘avenue’ proves to be disappointing, – with limes only at start and finish.  In between it looks more like hornbeams and cherries – neither are good mistletoe trees.  But there is some mistletoe in the limes at the other end too – so we conclude that yes this is a lime avenue with mistletoe – it just doesn’t have many limes anymore.

Don’t know anything about the history of this house, and this isn’t the day to find out, but assume that the mistletoe was probably planted like in so many other parkland limes.  We know there was mistletoe at Kingston Lacy, another big house, now NT, nearby – there are accounts of mistletoe there being harvested by the gardeners at Christmas.
 

Off to the next site, just up the road at Sturminster Marshall.  It is a unusual site for Dorset – not on a garden apple tree or parkland lime, but a hedgerow hawthorn – and so possibly genuinely ‘wild’  .  But it is so close to the Henbury House colony, and also to Kingston Lacy House, that it just as likely to be spread by a bird from the colonies there.  The site is a thick hedge alongside a bridleway.  The mistletoe is on the field side of the hedge, invisible from the bridleway but easily spotted from a gateway into the adjoining field.  But when we get there, the mistletoe appears to have gone – the hedge has recently been mechanically trimmed on the field side (see pictures), and the plant isn’t visible from the field gate.  It’s definitely been pruned – but by how much?  Is any still there?  Caroline tried to spot it from the bridle path side, but the hedge is still thick and the view is directly into the low afternoon sun.  If there is any growth left it’s impossible to spot.  We’ll have to mark this one down as a possible loss.

Comment:
Not a bad day overall - some new mistletoe sites at Henbury, and a thriving plant at Sandford.  But a possible loss at Sturminster Marshall – particularly sad as it was ‘wild’.  And there may be a risk to that Sandford plant too.

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(pictures below)

Friday 5^th December 2003

Am called by Kate Griffin, British Waterways press office, to finalise press release for next Thursday.  No probs, am keen to get there and get up that tree – never mind the press, this will be an important part of the monitoring of the London Mistletoe Action Plan.

Mid-morning – by arrangement am called by BBC Radio Suffolk – a general phone interview about mistletoe and on the website.  Am not on best form (a little bit over-mistletoed this week), so I hope they were happy!

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Wednesday 3^rd December 2003

Chat to William Moreno, Biodiversity Project Officer for the London Biodiversity Partnership – who has been reminding me, on and off, for months that I need to give him some words on the revision of targets etc for the Mistletoe Action Plan for London.   Bit embarrassed – should have sorted this out ages ago - now needed for, er, tomorrow.  We come up with some revisions which William assures me that the steering group and I can still tweak later.

Must circulate the steering group with updates on what's been going on recently.  Including the Hampton Court Park lime tree fellings, and attempts to save some mistletoe there.  More about that another time.

 Also can now do a bit more filling in of the website, and add a link to the Institute of Biology page (http://www.iob.org/) - as my mistletoe review paper is now available online (chttp://www.iob.org/downloads/249-254%20Briggs.pdf)

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Tuesday 2^nd December 2003

On leave, and it’s the second Tenbury Wells Mistletoe Auction of the year.  But decide not to go – too many other issues to sort out, and due to talk to Radio Gloucestershire at 2.00 so would have to rush back..

Of course this decision is a mistake.  Get a message mid-morning from Plantlife’s press office that BBC TV are at the Tenbury auction, filming for weekend Breakfast News and News 24 and they want to interview me.  

Botheration – no way I can get there in time to catch the auction, and am not that keen on going all that way otherwise.  After a few hurried calls we compromise on my meeting the presenter and crew near Ledbury at 2.30 – so we’ll still have some light and, most important, still be in mistletoe country.  But this means Radio Gloucestershire get rescheduled – but no probs – we settle for 1.00 at Frampton and I talk to Brian Bailey their countryside presenter against a backdrop of splendid ancient and half dead trees festooned with mistletoe.  

Approaching Ledbury I dash round some side lanes before arrival to find a quiet spot with a good mistletoe-laden orchard.  Sun is getting low, so it needs to be on the right side of the road, and easy to park.  Find one that’ll just do, rendezvous with the BBC team and they do a short interview.  Due out on Sunday morning breakfast TV and repeated on News 24.  I’ll miss it all as I’m going to be mistletoe hunting in Dorset on Sunday. 

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Saturday 29^th November 2003

A long weekend upgrading the mistletoe.org.uk website.  Not much light relief, but I do go out and buy the Times to check for Katherine Swift's article.  Sure enough it’s there (you can access it at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ - but The Times is a bit stingy and charges for items more than 7 days old).   

This is the first broadsheet mistletoe piece I’ve seen this year.  Wonder how many more there’ll be – there are usually several.  Obviously Andy Morgan's planning something, and British Waterways are issuing a press release next week for a photo opportunity with me looking for mistletoe seedlings up a tree in Enfield.  

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Friday 28^th November 2003

Andrew Morgan, journalist who has written mistletoe features for the D Telegraph etc calls.  Not good timing, as in a meeting with Heritage Lottery Fund Trustees to discuss our bid for £22.5million bid for the Cotswold Canals.  Promise to ring back.

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Tuesday 25^th November 2003

To Tenbury Wells – the first Mistletoe Auction of 2003.  See pictures (right) taken on the day:

Not expecting anything different to previous years – but this has been an annual pilgrimage since 1993 – ten years of attending (and never selling or buying anything)! 

Usual problem of parking on arrival – Tenbury is always full on mistletoe days.  But eventually find a place in a residential street and make my way down to Brightwells – the agricultural auction yard I know will be covered with Christmas trees, holly wreaths and mistletoe.  The wreaths and trees always occupy the livestock pens, and Nick Champion, the auctioneer, walks above them on the narrow plank walkway set at fence level to be above the livestock.  It’s all rather surreal when the pens only hold holly wreaths.  They’re unlikely to attempt to escape.

Mistletoe is auctioned last – and is scattered around the rest of the yard, occupying every nook and cranny of space.  You think you’ve discovered it all then round a last corner and find yet another few square feet of tarmac covered with a dozen more lots.  (see pictures)

The usual chaos of wholesaler’s vans are double and triple-parked in the remaining spaces, with the chaos heightened once successful bidders start carting their goods around.  Hand carts piled high with mistletoe, and broomsticks (do buyers bring their own?) for carrying the wreaths en masse.  The place is always crowded with onlookers, so it can be difficult to manoeuvre when laden with several hundredweight of greenery.  And they’re from all over (see pictures)

The mistletoe quantity looks much the same as usual, but it seems particularly well-berried this year.  The holly, by contrast, seems to be a more short on the berry front.  All the mistletoe bundles bear labels – indicating their origin – all local names and addresses – Herefordshire, Worcestershire, and a few from Gloucestershire.  No foreign mistletoe in evidence – this is usually instantly recognisable as it is boxed.  One wholesaler I see regularly tells me that the French mistletoe is ‘diseased’ this year.  Must look into this.

Not much sign of the media this year – though they’ll probably be at next week or the week after (the final auction is on Tuesday 9^th).  I do know that Katherine Swift, who writes a gardening column for the Saturday Times is here somewhere.  She’s writing it up for her column this week, and we talked mistletoe trivia on the phone a few days ago.  We had exchanged mobile numbers to meet on site – but I left my notebook behind.  Eventually she rings me, but to say she’s dashing off on the trail of a mistletoe on oak – of which there are several round here – if you know where to find them…

Nick finally reaches the mistletoe, and the onlookers part to allow the serious buyers to follow Nick up the narrow paths between the mistletoe bundles (see pictures).  Inevitably a lot gets crushed underfoot – but nobody seems to mind.  There’s plenty here.  Bidding is brisk – but Nick still encourages doubters with the story of the diseased French mistletoe.  Wonder if this is true?  I watch for about 25 minutes and then wander off in search of fish and chips to warm me up.

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Sunday 23^rd November 2003

Planning layout of new website…  Not very exciting.  

Annual call from Radio Gloucestershire to do mistletoe interview - this has become something of a ritual now!

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Saturday 22^nd November 2003

A misty morning, and up early to drive to Coalbrookdale to attend an Association for Industrial Archaeology Council meeting.  Not much mistletoe there?  Maybe not, but lots on the way.  The route up the M5 to junction 6, and then through to Kidderminster on the A449 passes through mistletoe country – and it’s the first time I’ve travelled up this way since the leaf-fall.  Many trees with globes of mistletoe visible from the road, but this only lasts as far as Hartlebury and even then only close to the river valleys.

North of here mistletoe becomes much rarer, and so I have to content myself with the Rugby World Cup Final for entertainment.  But the journey is an encouraging reminder that the mistletoe season is nearly here.  Next week I’ll be passing over the same ground on the way to the first mistletoe auction of the year – at Tenbury Wells.

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