Trader Joe's Real Mistletoe: a study in realness

This holiday Trader Joe's have been selling 'Real Mistletoe' in cute little old fashion-inspired boxes.  On the back of each box is stated "Our real mistletoe is hand harvested in the Pacific Northwest. Perserved naturally, it will last all season long. Hand from a doorway and steal a kiss from your sweetie!"

Trader Joe's Real Mistletoe. Photo © Botanical Accuracy.

Now, the first question we would ask, is of course, is it real? Well, it is a product of nature.  The plant inside the box is a real dried plant, not something molded and plastic.  So yes, it is real. (Of course plastic is also real, formed by atoms and electrons and chemical bonds, etc.  It all depends of your definition of 'real'. 

However, this is a dried plant dipped in paint. There is no information of what the paint contains, neither does it say anywhere on the package that the mistletoe is painted.  Instead it says 'preserved naturally' on the back of the package.  That brings us into the sticky territory of "what is natural?".  There are a lot of natural things in the world that we usually do not associate with the marketing term 'natural', such as uranium radiation, cancer, gold, DNA mutations, strychnine, and methane. Natural simply means it is something that exist in nature by itself, something we humans haven't created. There is no legal definition of natural.  There is no way to know if humans created this green paint on this mistletoe, or the dye or paint was mixed by 'natural ingredients'.  So, this is just another case of the use of 'natural' in marketing in a way that is ambiguous and uncertain. One thing is for certain though, a normal (natural) mistletoe has a greenish yellow or yellowish greenish color, and is never this dark green. Trader Joe's helped nature a bit with the color here.

Mistletoe dipped in paint. Photo © Botanical Accuracy.

Second, is it real mistletoe?   Now it becomes a bit tricky.  This is a mistletoe indeed, and mistletoes belong to a large group of species in the plant order Santalales.  The one historically associated with Christmas is the European species Viscum album, but it has cultural and mythological references all the way back to Viking times). The plant in the Trader Joe box is a mistletoe, but it is not Viscum album.  It is a species of Phoradendron, but which one is hard to determine due to the green paint on the leaves and flower buds. Several species of Phoradendron exist in the United States, and this is likely Phoradendron leucarpum (Santalaceae), which indeed is used as a Christmas substitute here in the United States. (It was ID'd with help from the Facebook group Plant Identification (intermediate-advanced) - Thank you!)

Phoradendron leucocarpum, not Viscum album. Photo © Botanical Accuracy.

So, in conclusion, is this real mistletoe?

Yes, it is a real plant, but painted. Yes, it is mistletoe, but not the species that is historically associated with Christmas kisses.  As usual, what is real really depends on your definition. And yes, it is a real mistletoe, a plant from the mistletoe order. Would I hang up this dried painted breakable mistletoe in my house?  Never. In my mind, this is not at all the real mistletoe of old Christmas traditions.

For more on botanical accuracies and inaccuracies on mistletoes, here is a link to a post from earlier, explaining the difference between mistletoes and hollies.

Kissing under the mistletoe, or is it holly?

Kissed someone recently under a mistletoe?  Did you check, maybe it was holly?

The tradition of hanging a little bouquet of mistletoe in the ceiling or door frame and being allowed to kiss whoever happens to stand under it is an old tradition, and a popular subject of movies, comics, postcards, and general holiday fare in both Europe and North America.  We are currently in what The New York Times calles the "hemiparasite season" in their recent article on mistletoes.  No other time of the year provides so much attention to these green mistletoe plants that live on trees, and are often common in Christmas decorations. Another traditional Christmas plant is the holly, a shrub that has spiny, dark-green glossy leaves and (usually) red berries.  The two are often featured together.

Old European Christmas card showing mistletoe (Viscum album) with white berries
and holly (Ilex aquifolium) with red berries.

Mistletoes only grow as half-parasites on trees, usually high up in the canopy, and stay green year round.  They are easiest to spot in the winter. 

Mistletoes (Viscum album) growing on deciduous trees in Switzerland.
Photo © by Jason R Grant, used with permission.  

Mistletoes (Viscum album) plant from Switzerland.
Photo © by Jason R Grant, used with permission.

And here comes holly:

Holly (Ilex aquifolium) from Switzerland.
Photo © by Jason R Grant, used with permission.

Unfortunately, the increasing plant blindness and under-education in botanical subjects we see in media and among the general public worldwide is spreading also into Christmas botany, and a few cases of 'kissing under the holly' have showed up. Some examples:

Sweater "Kiss me under the mistletoe" showing holly, not mistletoe. 
For sale on etsy, see link.  Photo © owltheshirtsyouneed on etsy (fair use).

Greeting card "Get under the mistletoe" showing holly, not mistletoe. 
For sale on etsy, see link.  Photo © TwistedOakGreetings on etsy (fair use).

There are some more examples here, and here, and here.

The two plants are nearly impossible to mistake for each other, unless you think each green thing is a green thing and nothing more.  Here is a simple table for those of you that want to dig into the separating characters. Note that this table are for the most common and traditionally used species of mistletoes and hollies, and that there are other wild species and cultivars with different berry colors.

	Mistletoe (Viscum album, etc.)	Holly (Ilex aquifolium, etc.)
Leaves	Small, flat or slightly twisted and spoon-shaped, with smooth edges	Very spiny edges, thick and glossy green, wavy (hurts when you touch them)
Branches	Green, easily seen between the leaves	Usually brownish, usually covered by the spiny leaves
Berries	White, nearly translucent	Red
Grows	As a partial parasite on trees, has a sucker root into a tree branch	As a shrub or small tree, has its own roots in the ground

The user FireFiriel on DeviantArt has clarified it once and for all with a nice drawing.

(This post was inspired and helped by information from reader IT in Sweden - many thanks!)

Christmas Tree of Life does not need a little correction

Christmas Tree of Life Greeting Card
(c) blaghag on Zazzle, fair use.

Here is a cute little Christmas Tree of Life Greeting card designed by 'blaghag' for sale on Zazzle (link) , depicting the evolutionary relationships between reindeer, elves, Santa, and the four plants fir tree, poinsettia, holly and mistletoe, all accurately depicted and with nice scientific names.  Santa and the elves got new fictitious scientific names, nice! The description of the card includes this justification why this is a great card to buy:

"From mistletoe to reindeer, we're all share a common ancestor! Great card to send to your scientific and freethinking friends for the holidays."

I love this card.  It is innovative, fun, and for any science and reason-minded person, a great card.

Phylogenetic trees are read from the root to the tips. In this card, the root (the common ancestor) is at the top, and the branches to the different organisms are branching downwards.  Santa is most closely related to Elves, and reindeers are related to Santa+Elves, since they are all animals, all three of these groups.

Fir trees are conifers, and conifers are part of gymnosperms that are the sister branch/group to flowering plants (such as poinsettia, holly, and mistletoes).  Poinsettia is in the family Euphorbiaceae with spurges and they are placed in a bog group of plants called rosids (near roses, walnuts, birches, and many other plants). Mistletoes are in the family Santalaceae with lots of other parasitic plants, which are placed on another branch, sister to a giant group of plants called asterids.  Holly, an asterid, is in the family Aquifoliaceae. Other asterids are carrots, sunflowers, viburnum, and artichokes, the coffee plant, milkweeds, mint and potatoes.

[This post was updated on January 12, 2014.  The phylogenetic tree shown on the postcard is correct; mistletoes are sisters to holly plants.  The blog text has been changed so it is accurate based on the latest scientific findings. We regret the error. ]