Note: In the print MED the examples in sense (b) were identified unqualifiedly with basil (interpreting the English word based on the predominant sense of the Latin); DMLBS similarly identifies the Latin word with the plant 'mistletoe' when considering the same and similar examples, thereby interpreting the Latin word based on the predominant sense of the English. In some examples, at least, the latter is more likely to be correct (the description of the plant 'osinum, þat men clepe mistilto' in Agnus Castus, for example ("long lewys and .. growith on trees"), is indisputable a description of Viscum album"). For attempts to break out of this circle, and to account for the original misidentification, which goes back to Old English glosses, see the long note in OED, s.v. mistle n., and in P. Bierbaumer, Der botanische Wortschatz des Altenglischen, vol. 3, pp. 172-3.