Viscum album is the common European Mistletoe, native to Europe and parts of western & southern Asia, where it occurs as an evergreen hemiparasite in the crowns of broad-leaved trees, particularly apple, lime (linden), hawthorn and poplar, its roots & actually most of its mass penetrating the bark & extending into the vascular tissues of the host tree.
The European Mistletoe is only rarely found in North America, as an introduced species, tho the similar native North American Mistletoe Phoradendron leucarpum fills a similar niche.
Both are used interchangeably in the Christmas & New year traditions of EuroAmerican culture, but only Viscum album appears in our homeopathic Materia medica.
Traditionally, in the Cronquist and related taxonomic schemes, the genus Viscum, comprising nearly 100 described species of mistletoe, was classified in the botanical family Viscaceae (in the order Santales); in the contemporary APG schemes based on genetic cladistic analysis, this has been folded into the family Santalaceae, the sandalwoods, comprising 43 genera & 1,000 described species, including small trees, shrubs, perennial herbs, and epiphytic climbers, all partially parasitic on other plants.
26 species of Dwarf Mistetoes, of the genus Arceuthbium within the Santalaceae, parasitize conifers of the families Pinacea and Cupressaceae in North & Central America, Asia, Europe, & Africa. Arceuthbium douglesii, parasitic in the crowns of old-growth Douglasfir in the North American Pacific Northwest,
provides essential nesting habitat for the Douglas squirrel, the preferred prey of the infamous Spotted Owl.
J.H. Clarke makes brief mention of Santalum, the oil distilled from the wood of Santalum sp. (any of several species of sandalwood, particularly Santalum album of India);
Okoubaka aubrevillei, a rare tropical hemiparasitic tree classified in the family Santalaceae, found in the rainforests of West & Central Africa, was introduced into our Materia Medica initially on the basis of ethnobotanical indications by Willmar Schwab & M.J Kunst in 1970, with “provings” of questionable significance by David Riley in 2012 and Michel Teut in 2013.
The evergreen nature of Mistletoe positions it, along with Holly & the evergreen conifers, as a species that bridges one year to the next with the vibrancy of life though the “dead” of winter, hence its traditional use in European mid-winter ritual. I think it’s delightful to connect with the natural world, and with our cultural heritage with this kind of knowledge, but this kind of “source information”does not effectively inform our use of medicinal substances for healing.
T.F. Allen lists the following as “proving” references for Viscum album:
Authorities. 1, Dr. Center, Charleston Med. Journ. and Rev., vol. vi, 1851, 448, two women, æt. eighteen and twenty-one years, took Viscum to procure abortion; 2, Henry Belcher, M.D., Month. Hom. Rev., vol. xii, 1868, p. 282, a girl, æt. seventeen years, in whom catamenia had not appeared, but who appeared well, except a severe form of chorea had long troubled her, took 5 drops tincture, three times a day, for a week; 3, Joseph Dixon, Brit. Med. Journ., 1874 (1). p. 224, a boy, æt. fourteen years, ate eight berries; 4, Pröll, A. H. Z., 96, No. 10 (Brit. Journ. of Hom., vol. xxxvi, 1878, p. 271), took the tincture, beginning with a drop, and increasing every day by a drop until he took forty at a time.
Clarke mentions several other “proving” references in mother tincture to 3x potency, along with several toxicologic & clinical observations.
These largely “accidental observational” “provings” have provided us with some reasonable information regarding the medicinal properties of Viscum album, but a thorough formal Prüfung is wanting. This is a “small” remedy, its “smallness” likely principally related to having received little formal attention.