Mistletoe

To many people Mistletoe may have pleasant romantic connotations.  There is a tradition that a young woman standing under a branch of Mistletoe at Christmas time is eligible for a kiss from any young man in the vicinity.  One would have to be a bit careful with that in these days of harassment law suits, but there is another reason altogether why I absolutely hate Mistletoe, which is that it is killing many of our beaut gumtrees.  There are some who would say that Mistletoe does not, in fact, kill trees, but I beg to differ.  Perhaps there are other factors involved, such as the tree being stressed from drought, but I have seen many, many nice trees- young and old- die at Whistlestop due to Mistletoe infestation.

The tree in the picture at the top of the page is a typical example of the problem.  On an otherwise nice tree many seperate infestations of this parasite occur, from seeds placed by birds, or seeds in bird droppings.  This tree is probably about 30 years old, and is surviving, but is far from healthy.  Another very similar tree next to it has died because of the mistletoe, and now needs to be removed. Apart from the fact that these trees are attractive, they also perform a very useful function, which affects the whole property.  As the trees grow up they create shade, naturally enough.  The tea-tree scrub which is so prevalent on Whistlestop will not grow well in shade, and will die back, leaving the shady area under the trees open and grassy.  That is very much how I imagine this bit of land was before it was affected by misguided attempts to clear it.  As much as anything else I would really like to bring Whistlestop back closer to it's 'natural' state, albeit with a few railway lines and vehicle tracks running through it!

Mistletoe, like the tea-tree scrub, is native to the area.  It does seem to be way more prevalent than it should be, though.  I think this is largely because the bushland is out of balance.  It is said that the Australian native Sugar-gliders will eat Mistletoe and keep it in check.  I have never seen this, as I doubt there are any of these wonderful little creatures around due to the many foxes and feral cats.  I have seen grubs eating the Mistletoes, so effectively that the 'plant' will die, or disappear.  I haven't seen that for a while, though.  Sometimes the Mistletoe will so completely suck the life out of the branch it's on, that the branch will die, killing the Mistletoe also.  The only effective way of removing the Mistletoe is to cut off the branch that it's on.  If the branch is low down, no probs, but in many cases it is well out of reach.  It might be worthwhile, or necessary, to hire a hydraulic tower sometime in an effort to remove the more troublesome Mistletoes.

The tree in the picture above- the one just to the left of centre- which is now so prominent, is interesting.  It was just another tree amidst masses of tea-tree scrub, largely blending with all the other bushland.  It did, however, have a large mistletoe on one of it's branches, visible through the scrub because the Mistletoe is a more yellowish colour than the rest of the bush.  I can't really remember, but obviously in one of my Mistletoe-purges where I would bash through the scrub with a ladder and long saw in search of lowish Mistletoes, I cut off the offending one from this tree and left it to decompose near the base of the tree.  Years later, while clearing the area for the Trainbarn and carpark I re-discovered this tree.  It is absolutely healthy and a really nice tree, and now it's location is where I have decided to build the Trainbarn main entrance.  It would almost certainly be dead had I not, all those years ago, removed the Mistletoe from it.