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Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Medical mistletoe December 18, 2020 In our recent survey of harms at Christmas, Robin Ferner and I did not discuss the harms that might arise from having seasonal plants in the vicinity, other than Christmas trees. In a PubMed search for plants connected to Christmas I find that mistletoe is the most often discussed. For example, “holly” yields 1775 hits (excluding the many authors called Holly and addresses such as Holly Springs, North Carolina).”Ivy” garners 1288 hits, again omitting authors’ names and institutions such as Ivy Hospital, Mohali, Punjab. “Mistletoe” yields 1603 hits, beaten by “holly”, but restricting the search to titles, mistletoe wins handsomely: 819 hits versus 533 for “ivy” and only 96 for “holly”. Perhaps it’s because mistletoe is a parasite. ....