A Kiss is Just a Kiss—Mistletoe is So Much More
This Christmas when you pucker up under the mistletoe, consider this: while festive and fun, mistletoe also provides essential food, cover and nesting sites for an amazing number of birds, butterflies and mammals in the United States. Check out
Not Just for Kissing: Mistletoe and Birds, Bees, and Other Beasts
. There are more than 1300 types of mistletoe worldwide, and more than 20 of them are endangered. And mistletoe can be downright deceiving, as one USGS scientist learned on a recent collaborative expedition to quantify perennial plant diversity in Baja Norte and Baja Sur, Mexico, when he first encountered the "tree with two kinds of flowers." For more about this and other encounters with mistletoe, contact Todd Esque at (702) 564-4506 or
todd_esque@usgs.gov
.
