Mistletoe Media

Travelled up to Ironbridge today, for the same Council meeting of the Association of Industrial Archaeaology reported at start of last year's mistletoe blog. As then, lots of mistletoe en route, and just as expected - but this time I had a mission in mind as I looked at it. I need some locations for a Radio 4 mistletoe interview next week - and will be starting out from the Shropshire/Worcestershire boundary area.

Unfortunately I was in too much of a rush to get to the meeting to suss out any new sites, and it was already dark when coming back. So I'll need to use favoured locations from the past - which is ok, but it's good to have some genuine sense of discovery when doing broadcast media and so a new site would have been better... Will need to make some calls to some orchard owners to set up possible visits.

And, I was so busy I forgot to buy the Daily Mail - where I think Monty Don was doing a piece on mistletoe growing, including using one of my picture. But maybe I got it wrong and it's in Sunday's edition.

Media interest so far this year has varied - mostly requests for pictures - from specialist magazines as wide-ranging as 'Garden News' and 'Everything French'! And the Daily Mail - as above. Plus the radio enquiries - some local stations and the Radio 4 request for next week.

Today I've even had a picture request from Oz - from a writer covering a new mistletoe species from the Loranthaceae, and asking whether I have a good pic of the Australian Mistletoe bird. I don't but do have a Gould League Badge with the Mistletoe Bird on it (will post a picture below) which is the closet I've got to Australian mistletoes. Must get out there next year. Some of the audience at my talk on Wednesday were going out soon, and we got talking about the various Australian mistletoe species - which include the infamous (amongt mistletoe anoraks only) West Australian Christmas Tree - Nuytsia floribunda - which (don't get confused by the name) is a ground rooting species - except it isn't - it's simply parasitic on the host tree roots instead of branches. All rather confusing really.