Viscum rotundifolium old rounded stems

The older Viscum rotundifolium stems lose their six-angled shape, as well as their blue-green or glaucous, youthful colouring. They gain slight swellings at the nodes and gnarling in marks left by dropped-off leaves and fruits. Stem colour in old age varies in shades of olive-green, a hue also found on the young fruit for a while.

The early ovoid or ellipsoid fruit-shape bulges gradually into a close to spherical form, as orange approaches red without quite reaching it en route to full ripeness. This is when these fruits reach maximum attraction for visiting, fruit-eating birds.

They are the most important seed dispersal agents of the sticky seeds via their droppings, feet and beaks. Don’t even dream of telling them to sanitise regularly!

Ecologies thrive on the mutualism of service provision by all living participants. "You feed me, I distribute your seeds", is but one of countless living arrangements making every local spot in bush or veld unique. Forests have birds and other animals to thank for their tree species diversity. These mobile collaborators support the stationary plants in testing the geographical borders of species continually.

Not all extensions of a plant’s geographical range from unusually far seed dispersal incidents succeed, but when they do, the basis is laid for speciation. Splitting of a species happens when different environmental conditions are tested by the “unfortunate” migrant specimens.

The continual becoming of the species of the world is a wondrous affair, becoming of nature (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist).