View allAll Photos Tagged MISTLETOE
Mistletoe is usually found on native soft wooded trees like Poplar and Apple, but here, i managed to establish it on a Californian shrub - Fremontodendron californicum, California Glory.
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Dicaeum hirundinaceum
Bowra Station near Cunnamulla is now owned by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy
I've looked for oak mistletoe flowers for years. Plants are often not accessible. I never found any flowers only fruit. I stopped to look at a mostly dry beaver pond and there were several mistletoe plants growing within reach. Damn if I didn't find the plants in bloom. For future reference, oak mistletoe blooms in the middle of the winter. For more information: plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=PHLE14
"Mistel" is actually the Anglo-Saxon word for "dung." In North America, the berries can be red or white and are eaten and spread by birds.
Common names include American mistletoe, eastern mistletoe, hairy mistletoe and oak mistletoe.
The well-known Mistletoe is an evergreen parasitic plant, growing on the branches of trees, where it forms pendent bushes, 2 to 5 feet in diameter. It will grow and has been found on almost any deciduous tree, preferring those with soft bark, and being, perhaps, commonest on old Apple trees, though it is frequently found on the Ash, Hawthorn, Lime and other trees. On the Oak, it grows very seldom. It has been found on the Cedar of Lebanon and on the Larch, but very rarely on the Pear tree. Seen here, growing right in the city centre at the end of Much Park St., Coventry.
4/12/10
Druids hold a misteltoe ritual at Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire. Experts are concerned that the decline of traditional cider orchards will lead to the loss of the mystical plant which grows on host trees. Mistletoe is regarded as a higly magical plant by druids. Photo Caroline Edge.
On my first walk in the hills in weeks I noticed this old oak, void of leaves in winter, hosting bunches of mistletoe. On first look I thought the bunches may have been remnants of large birds nests.
Mistletoe in our newly trimmed apple tree.
There's still tonnes of dead branches need taking out.
Flash went off in broad bright daylight, must be because I was under the tree.
The bright green bracts at the junction of the stems are mistletoe flowers - something you don't often see! The focus is a bit dodgy, the subject moved!
Pendant / Brooch combination. Link chain necklace with hand fabricated links which can also be worn independently.
Vitreous enamel on copper; sterling and fine silver, hand fabricated setting. Spring steel pin. Vesuvianite (idocrase), peridot, Canadian jade (nephrite), tourmaline.
The Mistletoe collection is obviously inspired by colonies of parasite Mistletoe plants, their surreal circular shapes seeming to float among the branches of the trees they colonise. Its status among humans has ranged from sacred plant to pest, but the truth of it is that, as with everything in nature, it is an ecologically important plant that offers food and refuge to wildlife.
The first two pieces date back to 2010, and I gave them new sterling frames in 2021. As most of my collections, I come back to it time and again, producing more pieces.
Something that didn’t dawn on me until much later is that my subconscious had driven me to design all of these as little gates or portals, through which a backlit view of spring appears, dappled sun glittering though the new, yellow-green leaves sprouting from branches. Thus the full name of the collection is Mistletoe: portals onto spring. The theme of greenery, fronds, roots, branches and particles floating in the sunlight spills out onto the frames.
The enamel is always in yellow-green to emerald green shades typical of spring, with a combination of techniques used ranging from wet-packing, dry sifting, over-firing and, always, painting on enamel with vitrifiable paints. Multiple firings are necessary, ranging from 910 to 810 °C. For this collection I use a range of stones in green shades, from the waxy opaque yellow-green of serpentine to super glittery, transparent micro-faceted vesuvianite… peridot, nephrite, green spinel, emerald-coloured chrome diopside… Sometimes I add a contrasting touch of warmth with, for example, garnets.
The parasitic mistletoe plant growing on an unusual host tree - the hybrid medlar-thorn (or haw-medlar) Crataemespilus grandiflora.