Some years ago I wrote my first blog on Mistletoe, that magical mysterious and idiosyncratic parasitic plant. It was about how I tried, since childhood, to establish mistletoe on apple trees - and always failed in my endeavours.
Around the year 2000 my son, Pete, gave us an apple tree in a pot to adorn our London garden. Even though the tree was a small one (some 6' tall and slim), it did give me yet another chance to attain my goal of having live mistletoe in the garden and evergreen stems and leaves to look at in the wintertime, not to mention the decorative white berries.
2008. This was the year when I started by harvesting sticky fresh berries from a Christmas bunch of mistletoe and pressing them into the junctures of trunk and spur. I used several methods to secure them and protect them from being bird food (even though there are no mistle thrushes in my part of London). I waited for the following summer and autumn to see if any had "taken". None had.
2009. I tried again. Still no luck (or was it lack of skills?). I let the matter rest.
2010. I was passing a skip of rubbish and noticed that on it was a bunch of dried mistletoe left over from someone's Christmas festivities. There were plenty of berry seeds still adhering to its branches, but they were shrivelled and brown. Why not try again? Perhaps these dry seeds might take when the sticky white ones had failed? I would have another shot.
Soon after discovering these seeds on the skip I tied some to the base of apple tree spurs with string - sometimes on dry bark, others on cut bark, and lastly in bark lifted to have a seed inserted beneath the bark (as best I could). As the string was white and unsightly, I coated it with rubber solution (Copydex) and on it rubbed earth. The result made my "plantings" almost invisible. 2011 came and went, as did 2012. I had obviously failed once more. I lost enthusiasm for the project and decided to give up. BUT...
2013. Three small mistletoe sproutings appeared from the bark - high up and about two inches from where I had planted the seed three years earlier. It was a Champagne moment. Success at last. But it was the only one from many "plantings".
2014. Another sprout appeared - this time half way up the pillar-shaped tree.
2015. And yet another sprout pushed through the bark - this time near the bottom of the small apple tree.
Although all three parasite successes grew well on the moisture running up beneath the bark of their host tree, there was not a sigh of a berry. The bunches must, then, all be male. This was a disappointment.
2019. Two berries appeared on the lowest bunch. We had one female. But no berries at all formed during the following year (2020).
2021. In the late summer, and for the first time, a few berries appeared on the topmost and most vigorous bunch. Had this bunch suddenly changed sex, or just been reluctant to come out?
What on earth was happening to this parasite's temperamental lifestyle? Does its decision-making and sexuality have any pattern at all? Or is it just being in line with humanity's present-day gender-bending, intersex confusion?
