(M253) Modern writers are not agreed as to the identification of the various species of mistletoe designated by the names _ixia_, _hyphear_, and _stelis_. F. Wimmer, the editor of Theophrastus in the Didot edition, takes _hyphear_ to be common mistletoe (_Viscum album_), _stelis_ to be _Loranthus europaeus_, and _ixia_ to be a general name which includes the two species.(792) On the other hand F. Fraas, while he agrees as to the identification of _hyphear_ and _stelis_ with common mistletoe and _Loranthus_ respectively, inclines somewhat hesitatingly to regard _ixia_ or _ixos_ (as Dioscorides has it) as a synonym for _stelis_ (the _Loranthus_).(793) H. O. Lenz, again, regards both _hyphear_ and _stelis_ as synonyms for common mistletoe (_Viscum album_), while he would restrict _ixia_ to the _Loranthus_.(794) But both these attempts to confine _ixia_ to the single deciduous species _Loranthus_ seem incompatible with the statement of Theophrastus, that _ixia_ includes an evergreen as well as a deciduous species.(795) (M254) We have now to ask, Did Virgil compare the Golden Bough to the common mistletoe (_Viscum album_) or to the _Loranthus europaeus_? Some modern enquirers decide in favour of the _Loranthus_. Many years ago Sir Francis Darwin wrote to me:(796) “I wonder whether _Loranthus europaeus_ would do for your Golden Bough. It is a sort of mistletoe growing on oaks and chestnuts in S. Europe. In the autumn it produces what are described as bunches of pretty yellow berries. It is not evergreen like the mistletoe, but deciduous, and as its leaves appear at the same time as the oak leaves and drop at the same time in autumn, it must look like a branch of the oak, more especially as it has rough bark with lichens often growing on it. _Loranthus_ is said to be a hundred years old sometimes.” Professor P. J. Veth, after quoting the passage from Virgil, writes that “almost all translators (including Vondel) and commentators of the Mantuan bard think that the mistletoe is here meant, probably for the simple reason that it was better known to them than _Loranthus europaeus_. I am convinced that Virgil can only have thought of the latter. On the other side of the Alps the _Loranthus_ is much commoner than the mistletoe; on account of its splendid red blossoms, sometimes twenty centimetres long, it is a far larger and more conspicuous ornament of the trees; it bears really golden yellow fruit (_Croceus fetus_), whereas the berries of the mistletoe are almost white; and it attaches itself by preference to the oak, whereas the mistletoe is very seldom found on the oak.”(797) Again, Mr. W. R. Paton writes to me from Mount Athos:(798) “The oak is here called _dendron_, _the_ tree. As for the mistletoe there are two varieties, both called _axo_ (ancient ἰξός). Both are used to make bird-lime. The real _Golden Bough_ is the variety with yellow berries and no leaves. It is the parasite of the oak and rarely grows on other trees.