Reproduction

Like most angiosperms Viscum album is dioecious (each plant is one sex) and grows flowers and fruits as means of fertilization and seed dispersal.

The flowers are small, only 2-3 millimeters in diameter, and are usually yellowish-green in color.  The flowers are unisexual (single sex), this extends to species in the genus Viscum that are monoecious (hermaphroditic).

As fruit it produces berries that range in color from white or yellow and orange tints, to bright red in the eastern parts of its range.

The flowers are primarily pollinated by insects of the order Hymenoptera (such as bees), but there is some possibility that wind may cause some pollination.  The seeds are spread by birds such as the Mistle Thrush.  The birds eat the berries and then excrete the seeds onto tree branches where the seed grows into the branch and begins to extract nutrients and water from its host plant.

The Mistle Thrush (Turdus viscivorous)                                                                                                        And one of its droppings containing a seed