Mistletoe: The next sprig thing – Nature, Environment – The Independent.
*Mistletoe is the fulcrum of an entire ecosystem. A versatile and rapacious plant, it is home to a number of invertebrates which are specially adapted to thrive on and around its surface. As well as the “kiss me slow” weevil and four other beetle species, it is also home to the mistletoe marble moth. This extremely rare insect spawns only on mistletoe plants and is subject to a government conservation plan to increase numbers.
*In England we use mistletoe to decorate our front doors, but in Austria it is used as a cancer medicine. The plant is a rich source of toxic lectin proteins (the substance that killed the Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov in the umbrella killing in 1978) which, when refined, can be injected into a patient with cancer. This solution, it is argued, stimulates the immune system into a renewed attack on the cancer cells. Although commonly used by followers of complementary medicine, its efficacy as a cancer treatment has never been satisfactorily proven.
