A MAJOR city in America is to twin with a picturesque Worcestershire town for the Christmas season.

The sprawling city of Oklahoma, which has a population of 1.2 million will this month be linked to Tenbury Wells, which has a population of 3,786.

The two have been brought together by a mutual interest in mistletoe. Tenbury Wells is the UK’s mistletoe capital, with the UK Mistletoe Festival taking place this weekend.

Oklahoma City, the 31st largest city in the US, also has a strong mistletoe theme – as well as Christmas mistletoe markets, the plant was adopted as the floral emblem for Oklahoma State back in 1893.

A spokesman for the mistletoe festival said: “The new twinning with Oklahoma may be seasonal but Tenbury hopes that this will also be a lasting sharing of mistletoe and an exciting demonstration of the power of mistletoe as a plant of peace and fruitful relationships.”

Tenbury’s mistletoe heritage is well over 100 years too having hosted mistletoe auctions since the 1880s. European mistletoe is different to its American counterpart and grows largely in the abundant apple trees growing across Worcestershire – Queen Victoria described the Tenbury Wells as her ‘little town in the orchard’.

To mark the twinning, a shipment of Oklahoma mistletoe is on its way to Worcestershire, compliments of Oklahoma’s Chamber of Commerce, echoing and reversing a shipment of Tenbury mistletoe sent to America by Thomas Graves of Teme Street, Tenbury in 1885. A  shipment of Tenbury mistletoe is also on its way to Oklahoma, dispatched by online mistletoe specialists’, Tenbury English Mistletoe Enterprise, on behalf of the Tenbury Town Events Committee.

The Oklahoma mistletoe, the bushy Phoradendron type, will be sold at the Mistletoe Festival’s charity auction for National Mistletoe Day on Saturday.

Tenbury’s famous mistletoe auctions are now held just over the Herefordshire border showing how mistletoe’s traditional theme of peace and love can be shared.