Mistletoe

Wikipedia describes mistletoe as ‘hemi-parasitic plants of the order Santalales’.  There are hundreds of species of mistletoe, found in many parts of the world.

Perhaps the best known is the European mistletoe in the genus Viscum.  It appears in European mythology – it was a sacred plant to the druids, and to this day is used to decorate at Christmas time.

The Pacific Northwest has its own species of mistletoe.  One is western dwarf mistletoe, Arceuthobium campylopodum, which parasitizes many types of conifers; and oak mistletoe, Phoradendron flavescens.  It is often found on garry oaks in Oregon.

Mistletoe was known to the Tillamook people of the northern Oregon coast.  When Louis Fuller was interviewed by the colorful linguist J. P. Harrington (see here for more info about him) in the early 1940s, he mentioned a little legend about mistletoe.  The Tillmook called this plant tast’ú•t.  Mr. Fuller said:

Mistletoe used to be something nice to eat, but the Coyote got mean with it & put it so as nobody can eat it.  Tast’ú•t grows on dead trees, like a head of lettuce.  [It’s an old] Salmon River story.  Coyote came upon girls picking mistletoe, it used to be something good to eat, & when the girls refused Coyote he got mad at them & said all right, I will turn what you are gathering then.

And so, mistletoe has been no good to eat every since.

Source:

Harrington, John P.  1942. Alsea, Siuslaw, Coos, Southwest Oregon Athapaskan: Vocabularies, Linguistic Notes, Ethnographic and Historical Notes. John Peabody Harrington Papers, Alaska/Northwest Coast, in National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.   20:86a