NatHistCam is a project to survey wildlife – plants and animals – in the City of Cambridge.
We would like to invite you to help us find Mistletoe in the city.
We know it is quite common but we would like to collect up-to-date information on where it is growing.
Mistletoe (Viscum album) is an evergreen hemiparastic plant, one which needs other plants to grow on, found throughout northern Europe. It grows on trees such as poplars and fruit trees, and is fairly obvious in winter, when there are no leaves to obscure it. Usually Mistletoe looks like a ball of green growth in a tree.
Don’t confuse it with the twiggy growths sometimes found in trees, or birds’ nests! If you have binoculars they may help you check your identification.
We know it has increased in the last thirty years. An article by James Cadbury and Philip H. Oswald, published in Nature in Cambridgeshire in 2009, reported ‘an explosive increase’ and found Mistletoe on 206 trees and shrubs.
Help us find out if it has continued to spread.
Please let us know if you see Mistletoe growing in Cambridge.
Mistletoe in large willow on Stourbridge Common
near Green Dragon Bridge
photographed 30th November 2016
We need to know WHERE it is growing. Please be as specific as possible, for example giving street and house number.
WHEN did you notice it? Please give the exact date (day, month, year)
If possible, WHAT sort of tree was it growing on? If you are not sure, please say so. Don’t worry if you have no idea.
Do add any comments, for example if there are several trees close together with Mistletoe in them, and let us know if you have photos.
Please enter this information on our recording page – see Submit a record – or email the details (where, when and on what tree) to nathistcam@gmail.com
For more information about mistletoe see http://mistletoe.org.uk