Maybe I should say two plants, since it is dioecious, that is, each plant is one sex or the other, and the small stems, or shoots, are referred to as either pistillate shoots or staminate shoots. The female, or pistillate, flowers are not seen as flowers, but are distinguishable by a tell-tale drop of sugary fluid over the tiny, recessed flower. It is thought that the pollen grains are carried by insects or wind to the drop of fluid and that later the drop is absorbed down into the female flower, carrying the pollen to the stigma of the female flower. There are normally 5-15 flowers per aerial shoot. Seeds mature within a fruit in September and October of the same year as pollination.
Mistletoe seeds are explosive.
As seed approaches maturity in the fall, the fruits, which are shaped somewhat like an avocado, enlarge, fill with fluid and become turgid. Eventually the abscission zone is weakened so that a slight movement in the wind causes a complete failure at the abscission zone. This causes the fruit case to fall away, allowing the fluid to escape, pushing the seed out to a distance of up to 20 feet. This functions to 'glue' the seed to whatever it strikes in its flight. The hazards to this 'naked' seed are many.