Traditionally used for Christmas decorations,
Let us remember this poetry by Charles FRÉMINE often learned in elementary school:
“Cut the mistletoe! Cut the holly!
Green foliage, red foliage,
Marry their branches,
Red pearls and white pearls… “
Since antiquity the mistletoe has been a symbol of prosperity and auspiciousness.
The Celts, the Romans attributed supernatural powers to it and used it as a medicinal plant, which is still the case.
And like many of these plants, it is completely poisonous.
Is he a really dangerous parasite?
It is a “hemiparasite”, that is to say that it is partly carbo-autotrophic, it has chlorophyll. It therefore takes practically only rising sap and colonizes only part of the branch, but this is enough to weaken the parasitized parts which become brittle.
– Ashley cooper
In the long run it kills branches and exhausts its host.
It mainly parasitizes apple, poplar, hawthorn and maple trees. More rarely, it is found on pines (in the Southern Alps) and on oaks it is even rarer.
How is it spread?
Especially thanks to the birds (the thrush in particular drains) which eat its fruits, however toxic, and redeposit in their excrement the seeds coated with glue which have not been digested on the branches where they stick and germinate.
The young seedling inserts a first sucker by perforating the bark of the branch. This ersatz root only colonizes the sapwood (does not penetrate to the heart of the wood), which generates a clearly visible deformation up to the end of the sucker. See on the ENS Lyon website.
How to get rid of it?
There is only eradication by pruning the carrying braches, but be careful, you must also remove the “suckers”, so cut the branches upstream. We can quite clearly distinguish the trace of the sucker by the bulge it generates on the twig.
Note that mistletoe needs a lot of sap to develop. In dry summers it is sometimes poorly supplied by the host and it happens to waste away.
Additional Info:
It is with the fruits of mistletoe that we make the glue which is used to trap birds (“glue” hunting technique).
Common mistletoe, Viscum album is a dioecious species, that is, there are male and female plants, it is the latter that bear the fruits.
Listen to the Sunday morning gardening show on France bleu Isère from 9 am to 10 am. You can call to ask your questions or give an opinion on 04 76 46 45 45