Friday Parasite: Mistletoe

That plant you may be hanging up in kissing balls this holiday season is a parasite. Or a hemi-parasite, to be more specific, because the American mistletoe (Phoradendron flavescens) does make some of its own food by photosynthesis. And it certainly has lots of opportunity to soak up the sunlight, because it doesn't bother with the risky buisness of growing in soil --the plant sinks its roots directly into its host's bark and starts to grow, way up high and out of the shade. (How does it get there? On a bird, of course. Mistletoe berries may be poisonous to us, but they're plenty tasty to birds. So the sticky seeds stay on a bird's bill or feet long enough to get flown to the next tree over.)