Mistletoe: a brief history

By: Emily Volz

Posted: 12/8/08

Amid the seasonal greetings and libations of a holiday party is a cutie who captures your attention. You've locked eyes, and now you're determined to lock lips.

As you saunter across the room, contemplating reasons to justify your forward behavior, you look up and find your alibi: mistletoe.

Mistletoe has a reputation for igniting the sparks of love. Tradition dictates that two people who meet underneath the mistletoe are obligated to kiss.

If the couple exchanges a kiss underneath the mistletoe, they will be rewarded with a year of happiness and good fortune. If they fail to uphold tradition, a year of bad luck will follow them.

Most Americans are familiar with the custom of kissing underneath the mistletoe. However, few people are familiar with the biology of mistletoe or the ancient stories that surround it.

In ancient times, Europeans had many more uses for mistletoe than exist today.

Mistletoe was considered a sacred plant by the Druids because its roots never touched the ground.

According to an Encarta column by Martha Brockenbrough, the Druids considered it bad luck for mistletoe to touch the ground, even after it was cut.

Placing mistletoe in a Druid baby's crib would deter fairies from stealing the child. Some people even believed that wearing mistletoe around their necks would make them invisible, according to Brockenbrough.

Druids can also be credited with starting the tradition of kissing underneath the mistletoe, according to Brockenbrough.

Two ancient tales provide us with clues as to how the tradition began.

In the first tale, the ancient Norse god Balder was killed by an arrow made of mistletoe. Balder's fellow Norse gods were upset and the goddess of love dedicated mistletoe to Balder, insisting anyone who passed under it receive a kiss as a sign of tribute.

The second legend says it was Druidic custom to lay down arms and exchange greetings under the mistletoe.

The custom transformed into an exchange of kissing that the English later adopted, according to Brockenbrough.

Regardless of how the tradition started, kissing underneath the mistletoe is still embraced by many people, including UConn students.

"I love mistletoe," said Alice Hughes, a 5th semester chemistry major. "I made a gingerbread house over Thanksgiving break and it had two gummy bears kissing under the mistletoe."

"It's an intrinsic part of the holiday spirit," she said. "It's kind of like, 'peace on Earth, good will toward men; just kiss him.'"

Hughes also appreciates the custom because of the opportunity it presents, "It gives people who are too shy to make the first move a chance to kiss someone."

Mistletoe is not a single plant, but a group of plants that survive through parasitism.

"Parasitic plants, in general, put down haustorium," said Clinton Morse, manager of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Plant Growth Facilities.

Morse explained haustorium as the tip or root of a parasitic plant.

"Those basically penetrate the bark and go right into the plant," he said.

"The plant will generally spend quite a bit of its life cycle inside the plant," Morse said, explaining that the mistletoe gets nutrition from inside the host plant and usually only surfaces to flower.

He said that although people commonly associate mistletoe with the green leaves they see during the holidays, some types of mistletoe do not grow leaves at all. The mistletoe growing at the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Plant Growth Facilities is one of those that does not have leaves.

"The one we have is desert mistletoe from South Africa," Morse said.

According to Morse, much of the mistletoe sold during the holiday season is cut, dried and sometimes painted months before December. Hundreds of years ago, mistletoe was cut by Europeans and used while it was still fresh, Morse said.