In the Daily Mail after all

Saturday - and another look at the Daily Mail Weekend supplement for Monty Don's mistletoe article. And it's in this week - complete with a picture of genuine English mistletoe (taken by yours truly in me mum's garden a fortnight ago - but I won't give up the dayjob for a photography career just yet...).

Was it worth the wait? Well, sort of, it's a good balanced piece talking about mistletoe in the British context, but I had hoped MD might say a bit more about his Herefordshire links. And goodness knows where he got his info on how mistletoe grows - according to the article its 'roots' grow 'into' the heartwood, eventually surrounding it and killing the branch. Not so, not so at all, mistletoe doesn't have roots per se, and certainly doesn't grow into the hostwood - it stimulates the hostwood to grow around it, not vice versa. And it doesn't surround and kill the branch either. It's really all to do with a specialist woody and cambial tissue organ called a haustorium - but maybe that's too much for the Saturday Mail - but methinks MD should know better... I'll ask him sometime!

Daily Mail article with mistletoe... click to enlarge