Restriction of Viscum Album to Few Phorophytes in a Habitat with Diverse Type of Tree Species

Viscum known for 464 species is distributed from temperate to tropical world as is a hemi-parasite on tree species. Commonly called as mistletoes, the members of the group show normal parasitic, facultative, or rarely tripartite associations. Mistletoes are also known for auto parasitism, where individuals of the same species parasitize on the same species of mistletoe growing on the host trees. In the present study, V. album is reported on three cultivated host species i.e. Juglans regia L., Prunus armeniaca L. and Salix alba L. only, however, the study area is characterized with the number of other tree species also. In order to understand the specificity of the hemi-parasite on these three phorophytes, a seed germination test of V. album has been conducted on other eight tree species in the same geographical area.