Parts Most Frequently Used: Leaf and Young Twigs (collected just before the berries form), the Entire Plant Dried

Flavors/Temps: Bitter, Sweet, Neutral

Caution: Large doses are not recommended as they can cause convulsions. Children especially need to be careful of the berries.

Key Constituents: Mucilage, Resin (called Viscin), Polysaccharides, Tannins, Salts, Amines (Acetylcholine, Choline, Histamine, GABA, Tyramine), Antioxidant flavonoids, Terpenoids, Caffeic acids

History/Folklore: There are actually two types of mistletoe – Phorandendron flavescens, a decorative plant native to the east coast of North America and commonly used for decoration, and Viscum album of European origin, used medicinally and as a sacred plant.

Because it can only be reproduced by seeds, ancient cultures believed it to be an excrescence (a distinct outgrowth or abnormality) of the tree. If you rub the berries on the smooth bark of the underside of tree branches, they will adhere in clefts made for them.

The plant’s Latin name, “Viscum,” derives from the juice of the berries being sticky and viscous.

The Druids held the plant in great reverence. They would search for it wearing white robes, gather it in a ceremony, and separate it from the host tree with a golden knife. It was always cut at a particular stage of the moon, at the beginning of the year, and only sought when directed by a vision. If no visions came for a long time, or if the plant had fallen to the ground, it was considered an ill omen and a portent that misfortune would befall the nation. They felt the plant protected the person wearing it. Any oak that it grew upon was respected for its curing properties. They used it to protect against ill fortune, as an aphrodisiac, an antidote to poisons, and to bestow long life and fertility. Young acolytes were sent around with mistletoe branches to announce the new year, and this ceremony is likely the root of our tradition of hanging mistletoe during the Christmas holidays.

The Scandinavian god of Peace, Balder, was slain by an arrow made of mistletoe. After being revived by the other gods and goddesses, he ordained that mistletoe be entrusted to the goddess of Love, and that everyone kiss the mistletoe to show that the branch had become a symbol of love and not hate.

The tradition of hanging the mistletoe in winter began with the Greek festival of Saturnalia, celebrated in late December.

The French book of home remedies, published in 1682, considered mistletoe a powerful curative for epilepsy, delirium, hysteria, neuralgia, and nervous debility.

The Swedish use mistletoe as a dosing rod to find gold mines. In the areas around Austria and Italy, it is said that mistletoe will make you invisible.

It is the female plant that produces the milky white berries; the male plant produces the yellow flowers. The sap of trees bearing berries was viewed as the semen of the woodland gods and therefore considered sacred. Rubbed onto a suitor, it was thought to be a pure aphrodisiac.

In Asia, the plant is considered edible. They also use the herb to help cancer patients, as it has been found to improve the survival rate and quality of life. Mistletoe extracts have been studied extensively in Europe as a supplemental treatment for cancer therapy.

Native Americans boiled the leaves and drank the tea made from this process to treat rheumatism, epilepsy, hysteria, and other nervous conditions. They also used it to induce abortions.

The wood of mistletoe has been found to have twice as much potash and five times the amount of phosphoric acid as the wood of its host tree.

Thrush love mistletoe and eat its berries, and it has been said that in winter, when food is scarce, the stems and foliage have been given to sheep, and they too, eat it right up. Grouse, morning doves, bluebirds, evening grosbeaks, robins, and pigeons all eat mistletoe berries.

In Brittany, the plant is called Herb de la Croix because a local legend says that the crucifix of Christ was made from mistletoe, and that is why the plant, in shame, reduced itself to becoming a parasite.