Here in my home state of Oklahoma, mistletoe is our state floral emblem, apparently because it was the only greenery available to put on gravesВ during the particularly hard winter of 1889. One of the most common traditions associated with mistletoe, dating back at least to the 1700s, is that anyone lingering beneath it would welcome a holiday kiss. Maybe youвЂ™ll want to trim a sprig to decorate with during Christmastime. You can prune it out, being sure to get all those spreading haustoria under the hostвЂ™s bark, or try chemical controls like the plant growth regulator ethephon. MistletoeвЂ™s parasitic ways can cause significant economic damage to forests industrially harvested for lumber.ДЇor a homeowner, though, itвЂ™s usually not necessary to control mistletoe вЂ“ which is good, since getting rid of it can be difficult and takes patience and persistence. Even then the tree doesnвЂ™t usually die from the mistletoe most often death is an indirect effect of attacks from diseases or insects that take advantage of the stressed tree. In general, mistletoe wonвЂ™t kill a tree unless it is heavily infested. When the berry bursts, the explosion potentially propels the sticky seed to a new home. Water pressure builds inside a dwarf mistletoe berry as it ripens.

A sticky substance on the seeds helps them attach to any tree they land on until they germinate and begin to grow.

Seeds of some species can also be shot out of the fruitВ like a cannonball at up to 60 mph (100 kph) to a distance as far as 50 feet (15 meters). Birds widely distribute the seeds after eating the berries. The females produce the fruits, called berries, which are generally white, but can be pink or reddish depending on the species. Mistletoes are what botanists call dioecious, meaning these plants have separate male and female versions. These invading structures can live for many years inside a tree even if the mistletoe plant itself is removed. But American mistletoe also sucks water and other nutrients out of its host plant by sending rootlike structures called haustoriaВ into the vascular tissue just under the bark of branches and twigs. It has green leaves and is capable of photosynthesis and so produces much of its own food. The American mistletoe, the one used at Christmas in the U.S., is in the genus Phoradendron, which means вЂњ thief of the treeвЂќ in Greek. Mistletoe is the Oklahoma Floral Emblem with the Indian Blanket being the state wildflower, and the state flower is the Oklahoma tea rose. Sixteen species of the leafless dwarf mistletoe infect only trees in the pine family and are mostly found along the West Coast. Twelve species of the American mistletoe can be found distributed largely across the southern half of the U.S., mostly affecting deciduous trees in the East as well as some evergreens in the West. Just two types are native to North America. Rather than being rooted in the ground, they live on the branches of other trees and shrubs. TheyвЂ™re all parasitic or semiparasitic, meaning they can survive only on a host plant. There are some 1,300 species of this evergreen plant worldwide. But, botanically speaking, thatвЂ™s what mistletoe is. ( The Conversation) вЂ“ A parasitic plant with potentially poisonous berries might not sound like something that would boost your Christmas decorations to the next level.

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