Description: Mesquite Mistletoe (Phoradendron californicum), a.k.a. Desert Mistletoe is a perennial woody hemi-parasitic shrub with branches 3.9–31 inches long, that grows on other trees. The foliage is dichotomously branching, with minimal opposite pairs of leaves. It is native to the southern deserts of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Baja California. It can be found in the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts under 4000 feet elevation. There are eight species in the Southwest, all within the genus Phoradendron. Three species occur on hardwoods, the other five infect conifers.The mistletoe is a leafless plant that uses a haustorium to attach itself to host plants, often leguminous woody desert trees such as Cercidium and Prosopis. It takes water and minerals from its host plants but it does its own photosynthesizes, making it a hemiparasite. The haustorium is a root-like structure that penetrates the host plant's bark and cambium, reaching the xylem and phloem where the haustorium extracts water and minerals, primarily carbon and nitrogen compounds, from the host tree or plant.
During the winter, October to January, it produces inconspicuous, fragrant, greenish-yellow flowers .039-.12 inches in diameter. Female desert mistletoe plants produces numerous, small spherical, translucent, sticky white, pink, or red berries that are adored by fruit-eating birds including cedar waxwings, euphonias, bluebirds, thrushes, robins, and solitaires and especially Phainopeplas (Phainopepla nitens), a silky flycatcher, which then spreads the seeds. Phainopeplas cannot digest the seed of desert mistletoe, so the birds disperse the seeds when they defecate or wipe their bills. The leaves are tiny and scale-like. The stems are green. These aerial hemiparasites grow on the branches of woody shrubs and trees. The main host plants are Acacia, Olneya, Parkinsonia, and Prosopisspecies, which are desert trees and shrubs in the Pea Family (Fabaceae). When the seeds germinate a modified root penetrates the bark of the host and forms a connection through which water and nutrients pass from the host to the mistletoe. It takes approximately 2 to 3 years for shoots to develop, following initial infection, and another year before the plant is producing berries. Young or small trees are seldom infected by mistletoe. In nearly all cases, initial infection occurs on larger or older trees because birds prefer to perch in the tops of taller trees. Severe buildup of mistletoe often occurs within an infected tree because birds are attracted to and may spend prolonged periods feeding on the mistletoe berries.
The white to reddish fruits are edible, but native tribes ate only the fruits of mistletoes growing on mesquite (Prosopis), ironwood (Olneya tesota) or catclaw acacia (Acacia greggii). Desert mistletoe plants, but not the berries, contain phoratoxins which can easily lead to death via slowed heart rate, increased blood pressure,convulsions, or cardiac arrest. Some of these compounds can cause hallucinations, but there is no way to judge dosage. People seeking a "high" from mistletoe still turn up in morgues each year. Native peoples used plants other than desert mistletoe to seek visions.
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