Distribution

The current distribution according to EPPO Global Database (EPPO 2024) is practically throughout whole Europe (except Ireland, Finland and northern Russia) and Mediterranean (except southeast), Caucasus, Western Asia (Iran to Afghanistan), Himalayas, Indochina (Myanmar, Vietnam), China (including Tibet), Canada (British Columbia) and USA (California). Zuber (2004) described the geographical limits in longitude and latitude: 10° W to 80°E (except of V. album subsp. coloratum) and 60° N to 35° S. Generally, it is adapted to temperate climate, outside of extreme continental regions.

In vertical profile, V. album grows in colline and submontane regions not above 1000 m altitude, however, in the south (Spain) it occurs in higher altitudes (Zuber 2004; Zamora and Mellado 2019).

Expansion of the common mistletoe in Europe, as o consequences of ongoing climate warming, resulted changes in the plant distribution, a good example of which are the Swiss Alps where the upper limit of the pine mistletoe occurrence has shifted by 200 m (Dobbertin et al. 2005). When estimate the dynamics of mistletoe range changes based on temperature and host availability (Walas et al. 2022), it is quite likely that the area of the current range of mistletoe may shift to the northeast, while in the mountainous areas of Europe to higher altitudes. On the other hand, the withdrawal of genetically distinct mistletoe populations from southern Europe can be expected.