A Parasite By Any Other Name

Tis the season for Mistletoe!

When the majority of us think of Mistletoe, we think of love, amore, kissing and... Ahem. We don't think of parasites, poison and bird poop.


Mistletoe is a successful parasite by any means. How it came to be a symbol of love and tradition is another story, and a far stretch from reality if you ask me. Most commonly named Viscum album, "Mistletoe", is a parasitic, poisonous plant that spends it's life sucking the life-giving juices out of its host tree. They find a suitable host and tap into it like a mosquito on your arm, but they never let go and over time that siphoning mouthpart grows bigger and fuses to your skin, becoming a part of you. Never again will a mosquito seem that bad...


Not only that, but if you were to ingest Mistletoe, you would be likely to incur acute stomach pain, diarrhea and a slowing of your pulse. Yes, Mistletoe will try to kill you too!


Mistletoe can parasitize over 200 different species of trees. They photosynthesize very little on their own and draw most of their food and water from the branches they inhabit in the tree canopy. So, how do they get there? Poop. Those little berries we all recognize attract birds which eat them, and then perch somewhere else and defecate the seed onto another tree branch. Even Mistletoe babies are parasites riding in the stomachs of birds!

How many kisses would
you get if you hung that
over your door?

There are many different types of Mistletoe actually, some that you would never recognize as such. Most Mistletoes do actually produce some of their own food, but there are other brutal life-suckers that do none of their own work. A perfect example of this is the leafless Quintral, or Tristerix aphyllus, who makes its home inside a spiny cactus and only ever emerges to produce flowers, seeds and to spread its gift to another unlucky cactus somewhere in the world.

Mistletoe can grow to significant sizes, big enough to thieve enough food and water from its host to kill it. And that's just one Mistletoe plant. In droves, they can take down small forests and decimate a landscape.

I'm sure we will all have a merry holiday this season, maybe with a little less poisonous, parasitic, bird-defecated, lethal Mistletoe.

Merry Christmas!



NEXT BLOG - Death by Strangulation. Or death by Fig. Maybe both?

Strangled To Death - By A Fig?