Magical Aussie plant that becomes extra special in December: 'Unlike any other'

It’s that magical time of year again. The Christmas trees are going up and decorations are being hung in homes and streets across the country. Some people may even be lingering under the mistletoe hoping for a romantic rendezvous.

While most probably picture such a moment occurring under a sprig of evergreen foliage like a scene out of a cheesy American movie, the reality looks a lot different in Australia — home to almost 100 species of the magical and mysterious plant, all of which are semi-parasitic.

“Australia is particularly rich in mistletoes,” botanist Dr Kevin Thiele told Yahoo News, adding we have the most species out of any country, although none grow in Tasmania.

“I think we’re one of the most diverse continents in the world for mistletoes, but they are cosmopolitan so you get a few in Europe — hence the whole Christmas thing — but only a few species, and I must say they’re not wildly interesting looking.”

That does not apply to the dozens of native varieties found Down Under, with Western Australia home to more species than any other state, including the “particularly interesting” Nuytsia Floribunda, otherwise known as the Christmas tree due to its bright yellow or orange flowers that bloom every December.

“It's a famous tree in the southwest,” Dr Thiele explained. “Unlike other mistletoes, it forms a tree so its roots are in the ground, but the roots actually creep along underground and find other plants and then wrap around the root and puncture it, stealing its water and mineral nutrients.

“In fact, in WA if there’s a Christmas tree growing in the middle of a paddock where a farmer’s growing carrots, it will parasitise the carrots.”

All other native mistletoes — including the commonly found amyema nestor — grow on hosts, hanging from their branches. Photos of an amyema nestor in bloom in remote Morawa, about four hours north of Perth, were recently posted online, showing its signature fluffy, soft red flowers

It is frequently seen in the rangelands of Western Australia and exclusively grows on Acacias, Dr Thiele said.

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Entering the world of 'partial parasitic' native mistletoes

Mistletoes are sort of “partial parasitises” and will target a particular host to help keep them alive.

“Some species only grow on wattles, others only go on Kurrajong, some only grow on eucalypts — they’re very picky,” Dr Thiele said.

The plants spread thanks to the help of mistletoe birds, which eat their sweet and very sticky berries before wiping the seeds on other trees.

“A seed will germinate and grows a little sort of peg that is able to stick onto the branch of a host tree,” he told Yahoo. “Then it punctures down through the bark of the host and it finds the tissues in the host branch that transport water and mineral nutrients from the soil up to the leaves of the host.

“They’re very specialist plants. They've figured out a trick for doing this. The host obviously doesn’t really want to be parasitised, so there’s a sort of a competition between the host and the mistletoe.”

Most of the time, mistletoes and their hosts “get along quite well”, some plants will die if they are already under distress and loose further nutrients, therefore also killing the decorative vine.

There are a couple of cases of a mistletoe that parasitises another mistletoe, that parasitises a host — so you get these very special plants that only live on other mistletoes, Dr Thiele.

Talk about a Christmas miracle.

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