Mistletoe love
Australia has more mistletoe species than anywhere.
WHEN MISTLETOE is mentioned most of us think of the European species, with its white berries and yellow-green leaves.
But Australia has more species of this parasitic plant than anywhere else in the world – more than 90, including about 70 that are native.
These plants rely exclusively on birds to spread their seeds and are often seen hanging from eucalypts. One of Australia’s most stunning mistletoes is the West Australian Christmas tree. Its fiery orange flowers bloom in summer. Being hemiparasitic, it stands as a tree rather than choosing a host, as most other fully parasitic species do. It nevertheless thrives off the roots of any plant that grows within 100m of it. Sometimes it even causes internet outages when its roots wrap around fibre optic cables.
The wireleaf mistletoe of Central Australia has bright red-pink, sticky-sweet flowers and prefers acacias, including golden wattle, as hosts.
Charles Sturt University ecologist David Watson recently finished the second edition of his book Mistletoes of Southern Australia, first published in 2011. David has made it his mission to boost the profile of Australia’s incredible mistletoe species.
“There’s low familiarity with mistletoe in Australia,” he says.
“People seem to assume it’s some plant from Europe, that it doesn’t belong here. I think because of the Christmas connection people assume it must be introduced like blackberries, willows and oaks.”
Being parasites, sucking nutrients from their hosts gives the mistletoes a bad name, David agrees.
But they don’t kill their hosts and they contribute to Australia’s biodiversity. ANGELA HEATHCOTE