[Pollinator] Mistletoes, bees, butterflies

[Peter Bernhardt]

A colleague in Australia found this link on American mistletoe species.
Readers may be interested in the butterfly species dependent on native
mistletoes as a larval food source.  Diane Larson is quoted here stating
that the flowers provide one of the earliest pollen and nectar reserves for
honeybees in the West.

http://goldrushcam.com/sierrasuntimes/index.php/news/local-news/5588-not-just-for-kissing-mistletoe-and-birds-bees-and-other-beasts-2

The article does refer to treating certain cancers with mistletoe
extracts.  A former student  received such treatments and injections but it
was NOT successful. It is true that mistletoes are part of traditional
Chinese medicine.  In Yunnan I was surprised to see mistletoes allowed to
flourish on fruit trees in orchards.  They were loranthoid species (all
American species are viscoids) with long, tubular, red flowers.  My Chinese
colleague told me that the mistletoes are collected by the orchardists and
sold to the traditional medicine trade.

Mistletoes are far more common in the tropics and in the southern
hemisphere.  The loranthoid species are pollinated primarily by birds in
South America, Africa and Australia.  How do I know?  Australian mistletoes
gave me a PhD. See the following link.

http://kbd.kew.org/kbd/detailedresult.do?id=69421

Peter Bernhardt
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20151225/1cec0c69/attachment.html>