The plant for today is rather different--it's in the Christmas Mistletoe Family (Viscaceae), which might sound like a rather happy name. Unfortunately, the reality is that it's a parasite, eating off the tree, stunting its growth, and sometimes even killing it. The mistletoes have different species adapted to different tree species. This one is limber pine dwarf mistletoe (Arceuthobium cyanocarpum), which as you might suspect, grows on limber pines (although it might also affect bristlecone pines). I couldn't find much info about the mistletoes except that insects and spiders pollinate them.To see the USDA Plants Database page on limber pine dwarf mistletoe, click here.
