_Queries on the Mistletoe_ (Vol. iv., p. 110.).--Will your correspondent
who some Numbers back stated, in a communication on the mistletoe, that
it was _not uncommon_ upon the oak in _Somersetshire_, kindly give _two
or three localities_ on his own knowledge? I fear some mistake has
arisen, for, as far as my experience goes, an arch-Druid might hunt long
enough in the present day for the "heaven-descended plant" among a
_grove of oaks_, ere he fortuitously alighted upon it. Some years ago a
friend assured me that he was credibly informed by a timber merchant
often in the Sussex forests, that _mistletoe_ was not uncommon upon oaks
there; but on a personal inspection it turned out that _ivy_, not
_mistletoe_, was intended. I suspect a similar mistake in Somersetshire,
unless two or three certain localities can be named as seen by a
competent observer.
I should also like to know from your Carolinian correspondent H. H. B.,
whether the mistletoe he mentions is our genuine "wintry mistletoe"--the
_Viscum album_ of Linnæus, or _another species_. The "varieties of the
oak" he speaks of as having mistletoe upon them, are, I presume, all
_American_ species, and not the European _Quercus robur_.