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Mistletoe

EnolaGaia

I knew the job was dangerous when I took it ...
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This Smithsonian article illustrates how mistletoe is more widely distributed, more useful, and more beneficial to its environments than one might think ...
The Biology of Mistletoe

Best known as a holiday trimming, the parasitic plant is a botanical luminary in its own right

Some plants are so entwined with tradition that it’s impossible to think of one without the other. Mistletoe is such a plant. But set aside the kissing custom and you’ll find a hundred and one reasons to appreciate the berry-bearing parasite for its very own sake.

David Watson certainly does. So enamored is the mistletoe researcher that his home in Australia brims with mistletoe-themed items including wood carvings, ceramics and antique French tiles that decorate the bathroom and his pizza oven.

And plant evolution expert Daniel Nickrent does, too: He has spent much of his life studying parasitic plants and, at his Illinois residence, has inoculated several maples in his yard — and his neighbor’s — with mistletoes.

But the plants that entrance these and other mistletoe aficionados go far beyond the few species that are pressed into service around the holidays: usually the European Viscum album and a couple of Phoradendron species in North America, with their familiar oval green leaves and small white berries. Worldwide, there are more than a thousand mistletoe species. They grow on every continent except Antarctica — in deserts and tropical rain forests, on coastal heathlands and oceanic islands. And researchers are still learning about how they evolved and the tricks they use to set up shop in plants from ferns and grasses to pine and eucalyptus.

All of the species are parasites. Mistletoes glom on to the branches of their plant “hosts,” siphoning off water and nutrients to survive. They accomplish this thievery via a specialized structure that infiltrates host tissues. The familiar holiday species often infest stately trees such as oaks or poplar: In winter, when these trees are leafless, the parasites’ green, Truffula-like clumps are easy to spot dotting their host tree’s branches.

Yet despite their parasitism, mistletoes may well be the Robin Hoods of plants. They provide food, shelter and hunting grounds for animals from birds to butterflies to mammals — even the occasional fish. Fallen mistletoe leaves release nutrients into the forest floor that would otherwise remain locked within trees, and this generosity ripples through the food chain. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/biology-mistletoe-180976601/
 
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This 2017 Smithsonian article provides some fun facts about mistletoe ...

The Enduring Romance of Mistletoe, a Parasite Named After Bird Poop

Nine things you should know about our favorite Christmas plant ...

(For Example ... )
Where did the name come from?

The English word for the plant is derived from a defunct Anglo-Saxon dialect. Apparently, having noticed that mistletoe often sprouts from bird droppings on tree branches, the words for dung—“mistel”—and twig—“tan”— were conjoined, and the mashup “misteltan” evolved over time into “mistletoe.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/poop-tree-parasite-mistletoe-180967621/
 
The jury is still out on recent claims that mistletoe can aid in cancer treatment ...
Medical Mistletoe: Can the Holiday Plant Really Fight Cancer?

In some countries, cancer patients take mistletoe injections to ease symptoms, but the exact effects of the extracts are still up for debate

... (L)ong before Christ was born, Druids, Greeks and other ancients knew the plant as a powerful healer for ailments from epilepsy to infertility. Today people are again touting mistletoe's benefits as a natural medicine—this time in the fight against cancer.

European mistletoe (Viscum album) is a poisonous and semiparasitic plant that grows on a number of tree species. It is increasingly being processed into extracts that, administered by injection, have become very popular alternative treatments in parts of Europe. But does it actually work? The piles of literature on mistletoe as medicine are so far coming up inconclusive. In the US, mistletoe treatments are currently available only from a few dozen naturopathic clinics, and the extracts are unlikely to win FDA approval anytime soon. The NIH currently recommends against the use of mistletoe as a cancer treatment outside of clinical trials, because it hasn't yet been proven either effective or safe.

Among the dozens of laboratory experiments conducted to date, some credit mistletoe extract with killing cancer cells in animals and boosting the body's immune system, which may help to fight the disease naturally. But other studies have shown little or no benefit. And even when mistletoe has appeared to succeed in the lab, it hasn't been proven through rigorous clinical trials to work reliably in the human body. The U.S. National Cancer Institute's Physician Data Query database cautions that “most clinical studies conducted to date have had one or more major weaknesses that raise doubts about the reliability of the findings.” ...

FULL STORY: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scie...-holiday-plant-really-fight-cancer-180953551/
 
In the mid-1980s, while at a Rainbow Gathering in New Mexico, I did something pretty stupid (all right, all right--I stepped in a fire pit while dancing around like a crazyman) and burned my left foot. Rainbow Gatherings usually attract a plethora of alternate and natural healers, and this one was no exception. One of them, who I was friends with, was an older African-American man we all called Uncle Bill. When he heard about my little accident earlier in the evening, Uncle Bill came into the camp where I was nursing my burned foot, and had me smoke a pipeful of mistletoe to ease the pain, and it worked. Having seen dried mistletoe before, I recognized it as being just that. It was a harsh smoke and didn't get me high; still I recall the pain going away when I'd finished the pipe, and experiencing a strange buzzing sensation all over me. Uncle Bill said you couldn't use it too often because it was somewhat addictive, and you could accumulate toxins from it if you used it too much. All I know is, it sent my pain packing, and the relief allowed me to go to sleep that night. The next day I was given some more orthodox treatment (burn cream, a bandage, and Ibuprofen) by someone else, and it worked almost as well.
 
I thought I had read that chemical analyses of mistletoe showed no reason for any kind of healing attributes? I must try and remember where that information came from!
 
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