| Within the wonderful world of trees lies another | | | | from the vampire as if in horror. No amount of |
| world - that of the organisms which harbor in | | | | chopping-out short of limb amputation will |
| trees as pests and parasites. Of these there is no | | | | eradicate the mature bushes. Fortunately for |
| end in numbers or variety. New home owners are | | | | trees, and for the human kissing custom, and for |
| scarcely to be blamed for becoming dismayed, as | | | | Oklahoma whose State "flower" mistletoe is, the |
| they often do, upon encountering one invader | | | | deaths it inflicts are slow and painless. Its glaucous |
| after another for the first time. This writer's | | | | clumps aloft even confer a macabre beauty upon |
| counsel to clients undergoing such baptism has | | | | the elms, hackberries, walnuts, gums, pecans, |
| always been: Cheer up, few kinds of attack on | | | | mesquites, and (rarely) oaks, which it reduces to |
| trees are fatal. Study of the trees' foes-learning | | | | skeletons. |
| to anticipate and counteract them - is a sporting | | | | Mistletoes abound from lower New Jersey to Key |
| proposition in itself. You may lose a few | | | | West, all across the South, and up the west |
| skirmishes, but there is a great deal that you | | | | coast into Oregon. In much of this range they are |
| yourself can do to win this war. Only occasionally | | | | accompanied by an even more picturesque |
| will an owner, particularly of young trees, have to | | | | growth called Spanish Moss, a member of the |
| call in a tree-service task force. | | | | pineapple family. This stringy, grayish stuff hanging |
| The trees' invaders are from two kingdoms - the | | | | from trees, making them look like shaggy Arthur |
| animal and the vegetable. The former are insects | | | | Rackham wizards, is not a true parasite. It is a |
| (and one bird) ranging from king-size larvae of the | | | | typical air plant, of which lichens and orchids are |
| big moths down to microscopic mites, mini-wasps, | | | | other examples. Air plants do not suck a tree's |
| and scale organisms no bigger than a pin point. | | | | life-juices but can smother it to death if allowed |
| The vegetable hordes are fungi, bacteria, and | | | | to run rampant. |
| viruses. These are all primitive plant forms, but | | | | Another conspicuous parasite, this a true one, is |
| there is one plant parasite that is anything but | | | | called witches'-broom. It shows up as dense, |
| primitive except in its role, assigned by mankind, | | | | deforming twig clumps in hackberry, larch, and |
| as a love symbol. This is mistletoe, one of the | | | | honey locust. It is caused by the sting of gall |
| deadliest invaders of all. | | | | mites or by spores of a mildew fungus - maybe |
| Mistletoe might well be spelled "missile toe," for its | | | | by both. Pruning is the only cure, if there is any. |
| first tiny rootlets have the power to insinuate | | | | Pruning or tissue surgery can sometimes head off |
| themselves into the host tree's living tissues like | | | | one other class of parasite - the canker-forming |
| the fangs of a vampire. Its pallid, waxy berries, | | | | fungi. Whenever such mechanical aids are |
| resembling seed pearls, are carried by birds and | | | | attempted they should be followed up by feeding, |
| dropped into bark crevices where they germinate | | | | usually with a high-nitrogen, to help the tree |
| under protection of their own gum. Mistletoe | | | | quickly seal off its canker lesions with healthy new |
| cannot live in soil but must steal its nourishment | | | | cells before remnant fungoid mycelia |
| from a host tree's sap veins. | | | | (thread-roots) can spread, as in animals' fibroid |
| Where it fastens on, grotesque swellings ensue | | | | tumors. Getting rid of these parasites is critical if |
| and the host's deformed members writhe away | | | | you want to have healthy trees. |