Viscum album "Phoradendron leucarpum" is used in North America in lieu of the European "Viscum album".) According to an old Christmas custom, a man and a woman who meet under a hanging of mistletoe were obliged to kiss. The custom may be of Scandinavian origin. It was alluded to as common practice in 1808 and described in 1820 by American author Washington Irving in his "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.": In Germany, the Christmas tradition is that people who kiss under mistletoe will have an enduring love or are bound to marry one another. Every year, the UK town of
Common name had not the author introduced into it so many new English names, that are to be found in no dictionary, and that do not preclude the necessity of learning with what Latin names they are synonymous. A tolerable idea may be given of the danger of too great a multiplicity of vulgar names, by imagining what geography would be, or, for instance, the Post-office administration, supposing every town had a totally different name in every language. Various bodies and the authors of many technical and semi-technical books do not simply adapt existing common names for various organisms; they try to