Mistletoe has characteristically branched olive green stalks and thick, leathery, dark green leaves. In late autumn and winter, at the ends of the mistletoe sprouts, ripen spherical, white, pea-sized fruit filled with sticky slime.
These fruits are a delicacy for: bohemian waxwings, eurasian blackcaps, song thrushes, fieldfares, common blackbirds and the biggest of our thrushes – mistle thrushes. The sticky content of the fruit sticks to the bird's beaks and feathers, and this is how the mistletoe seeds are transferred from one tree to another. This form of spreading the seeds of the plant is called ornithochoria.
Mistletoe can be poisonous, but when properly processed it is used in medicine, incl. in the treatment of circulatory diseases such as hypertension and atherosclerosis.
