Now a recent scientific study (Mistletoe as a keystone resource) has introduced a new paradigm of the evergreen plant: It is a key to keeping forest life healthy. Not only should it not be cut out of the forests it affects, but it could also be introduced in injured woodlands to restore them to health.
It was a massive task to eradicate the parasitic mistletoe, involving cherry-pickers, loppers, a dozen people and two seasons of work, made all the tougher because the Australian mistletoe mimics the trees it takes root on. Moreover, while mistletoe, with its 1,400 species in five families, lives on every continent except Antarctica, it is sparse within each forest. Dr. Watson found only a few plants in every acre in the woodlands where he worked.
In all, his team members removed more than 40 tons of the plant, leaving it on the ground for livestock to consume. Then they waited for three years.
Dr. Watson, known in academic circles as “the mistletoe guy,” had long suspected that his favorite plant was a keystone species, meaning it punches above its weight, ecologically speaking, but even he was unprepared for the results. He had supposed that creatures that fed or nested on mistletoe would be affected by its removal. Instead, he found that the whole woodland community in the mistletoe-free forests declined.
Three years after the mistletoe vanished, so had more than a third of the bird species, including those that fed on insects. Bird diversity is considered an indicator of overall diversity. Where mistletoe remained, bird species increased slightly. It was a similar story for some mammals and reptiles, but, in another surprise, particularly for those that fed on insects on the forest floor.
Analysis showed that species of mistletoe play an important role in moving nutrients around the forest food web. That has to do with their status as parasites.
Not only that, but mistletoes make and drop leaves three or four times as rapidly as the trees they live off of. As evergreens, they also do it throughout the year, even when trees are dormant. It is like a round-the-calendar mistletoe banquet.
For example, van-sized “witches’ brooms” formations in old-growth Douglas fir trees in the northwest United States produced by dwarf mistletoe parasites were once pruned away. Today, the brooms are protected because they are important nesting sites for the endangered northern spotted owl.
But introducing mistletoe onto trees could prove controversial. While the parasites are like Robin Hood, stealing from rich trees to feed the forest poor, they can spoil individual trees for lumber. That is especially true of the deforming dwarf mistletoe. Mistletoe is still widely known as the “thief of trees.”
What is the Magic of Mistletoe?
Still, recent studies add a touch of science to the folkloric view of mistletoe as a tantalizer, inducing people to wait under it for a kiss at Christmas. The custom stems from the ancient Druids, who believed mistletoe could work magic because it grew high in bare oak trees in midwinter where nothing else did, seemingly out of thin air. They cut it down with golden sickles, never letting it touch the ground, and hung it in homes to foster fertility.
The Australian study suggests that the plant does seem to work ecological magic of a sort.
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It is still hot in Florida with daytime temperatures staying in the 80s (29°C) but the shadows are long and there are some decent sunsets. Here a quickly changing sunset along the north shore of Lake Harris in Leesburg.
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Where Can I Find Mistletoe?
In Florida mistletoe can be found on almost any deciduous hardwood just off the ground to the canopy of the tree. Most commonly it is found in Laurel Oaks somewhere in the canopy. 2016 and 2017 have been odd years. September hurricanes ripped all the leaves from trees and extremely warm temperatures have caused the trees to replaced the canopy in mid-winter whereas prior to climate change trees would have been expected to be somewhat bare this time of year. Still, look up and look for a particularly healthy round clump of vegetation, that is mistletoe. Also, take a look along hedgerows and low-hanging laurel oak limbs to find mistletoe barely off the ground (easy reach for harvesting).
And now this. . .
