I was amazed at the interest in my yesterday's somewhat tongue-in-cheek image of local poplar trees - so here's a bit of back-story.
It became something of a fad 25 years ago or so to plant poor quality agricultural land with poplars as a commercial crop. The theory was that poplars are very quick growing, need no maintenance and can be densely planted... but no one had accounted for the 'mistletoe problem!
Once one tree has a mistletoe 'infection' it quickly spreads through the rest. Eventually the trunk and branches are weakened and subject to wind damage. The seeds are spread by birds who like to eat the white berries. The most common 'hosts' are apple, poplar and lime trees but also certain oaks. The Latin genus name for mistletoe is Phoradendron which means 'tree thief' - that says it all I guess.
The poplars in this image are about 3 km away from the ones I featured yesterday and you can see where some of the higher stems have already snapped off - these trees will be completely dead in a couple of years.
Inevitably, this is another image to view on black.
Lovely shots - both yesterday and today. Are the poplars particularly targeted by the mistletoe then? I remember seeing lots of mistletoe on the trees by the Seine when we lived in the suburbs of Paris, but never paid particular attention to the types of trees infected by mistletoe. An interesting and curious relationship, as you rightly say.
Ian