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