Viscum album is the form of mistletoe indigenous to Europe. It is poisonous to humans, causing stomach cramps and the runs. In America, the common indigenous form of mistletoe is Phoradendron flavescens.
Whether here or in Europe, mistletoe has a quality rare among plants: it’s a parasite. While it has the capacity to use everyone’s favorite 8th grade science word, photosynthesis, to grow on its own, most often it takes the form of a vicious, groaning zombie plant, feeding off the brains, water, and nutrients of a host plant.
And of course throughout the English speaking world, it is a common custom during the Christmas season to stand beneath this undead, diarrhea-inducing foliage and swap spit.
But wait! Didn’t Suzanne Somers of Three’s Company fame (we won’t go into She’s the 
Sheriff) use a mistletoe extract called Iscador (also marketed as Helixor) instead of chemotherapy while taking breast cancer treatments? Why yes she did. And she beat it!
Of course Somers may very well be a zombie now for all we know, but then again, her victory over cancer may have had something to do with her surgery and radiotherapy. After all, scientists have failed to find any proof that mistletoe extract has medicinal properties. Then again, they don’t recognize its zombie properties either, so I’m not sure we can trust them. They also said something about there being a hole in the ozone layer, and that scares me. Science is scary. Maybe we can all agree to just ignore science.
So does mistletoe have a role to play in the natural world beyond building armies of the undead? Surely it does. For example, it’s a preferred nesting spot for Northern Spotted Owls and Marbled Murrelets
In European lore, owls are wise. In fact, one of Baltimore’s oldest nightspots is called the 
Owl Bar, a former speakeasy located in the beautiful Belvedere Hotel. Alcohol always makes me wiser, that’s for sure. And indeed, high up on its towering walls, the Owl Bar boasts a multi-panel, stained glass rendering of the old nursery rhyme:
There was an old owl lived in an oak
The more he heard, the less he spoke
The less he spoke, the more he heard
O, if men were all like that wise bird
Actually, the Owl Bar’s version leaves out that last line. I guess they ran out of space. Or maybe it’s because the owls in question are not known for their wisdom at all! Aha!
You see it’s not some snooty, aristocratic European owl we’re talking about here. It’s the North American Spotted Owl, that sonofabitch Strix occidentalis, who likes to make a home in North American mistletoe, Phoradendron flavescens. And in many Indigenous North American societies, the folklore concerning owls doesn’t center on some bookish, little know-it-all who lies about how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, which never tasted very good anyway. No, in the folklore of many American Indian societies, owls aren’t known for their “wisdom.” They’re known as harbingers of death!
You see an owl walking down the street, you don’t ask it to explain post-modern theory to you. You turn tail and run! Besides, wasn’t it Spotted Owls that threw all those lumberjacks outta work back in the 1980s? Damn union-busters.
And what about that other bird who likes to nest in mistletoe, the Marbled Murrelets? Cute little bugger, actually. A handsomely appointed seabird of the Pacific Northwest who likes to get jiggy in old growth forests. Sadly, it’s also endangered. But that’s what happens when you’re on the front lines of the Zombie Wars. God bless you, little Marbled Murrelets.
So what have we learned then?
1. Zombies are on the loose.
2. They’re probably in league with scientists and post-modernists.
3. If you eat a Tootsie Roll while watching Three’s Company, an owl will murder you.
Oh, and if you find yourself standing under mistletoe this New Year’s Eve, you should French kiss a Marbled Murrelet. It’s the least you can do considering all they’ve done for us.
Happy New Year.