- Author: Lenya N. Quinn-Davidson
Published on: February 22, 2018
To see dwarf mistletoe seeds is to experience them. These are not typical seeds that gently drop from a mature plant. Rather, they are explosive — forcibly ejected from their fruits at high rates of speed. I remember learning about this in college: that dwarf mistletoe seeds can travel up to 60 mph and fly more than 60 feet from their hosts (Hinds et al., 1963). This process is triggered by internal heat production (called thermogenesis) within the mistletoe fruit — something that's never been observed in another plant (Rolena et al., 2015). It wasn't until many years after college that I actually experienced the phenomenon for myself. I remember driving along...
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