VietNamNet Bridge - People in Hien Quan commune, Tam Nong district, Phu Tho province, compare gao tia trees with ATMs. They even do not need to transfer money to these “ATMs” but they can “withdraw” tens of thousands of USD from the trees thanks to collection mistletoes from the trees.

 

 

Mrs. Bui Thi Tien  and her "ATM" tree.

Mistletoes are the plant species that live in the body of other trees. There are many species of mistletoes and each species has its own healing effects. However, the mistletoe on the gao tia trees is the most precious.

Mr. Bui Lang, 80, said that in this land, running along the Red River, all villages have gao trees but only Hien Quan commune has mistletoes on gao trees. People say that this is heaven fortune.

Mr. Lang said the neighboring commune of Thanh Uyen has a lot of gao trees but non of them has mistletoes. Meanwhile, of each 10 gao trees in Hien Quan, 7 have mistletoes.

Mrs. Bui Thi Tien's family has a 30 m high gao tree, which has mistletoes sticking all over the body and branches. Pointing to three baskets of mistletoes that were being dried under the sun, Tien said that she just picked them yesterday, because they were blown to the ground in strong wind. Tien said that amount of mistletoes was about 4 kg, priced VND2.8 million ($140).

She said that mistletoe was used in folk medicine but it works the best as medicine to treat postnatal diseases in women. In addition, it is very good for people with kidney and liver disease.

"People from Ha Tinh and Ha Giang provinces come here to buy mistletoe. They use it and introduce to others. Hence, my gao tree cannot produce enough mistletoes to serve customers," Mrs. Tien said.

The price for mistletoes from gao trees has increased from VND5,000/kg to VND700,000 for one kilo of dried product and VND500,000 for a kilo of fresh product.

 

 

Tien and a bag of dried mistletoes, which is worth a million dong.

Tien said the year-end is the harvesting season of mistletoes.

Mr. Le Van Long, Vice Chair of Hien Quan commune, said that the commune has about 170 gao trees, of which nearly 100 trees with mistletoe. These trees bring about income of VND40-200 million ($2-10,000)/tree/year.

"The gao trees have made the lives of people in the commune much better than before. Gao trees have become treasures," Long said.

Seeing high profit from gao trees, local people tried everyway to graft mistletoes to gao trees but they failed. It is also very difficult to plant new gao trees.

Tran Cham