Viscum album originally described by Linnaeus. Its species name is the Latin adjective "albus" "white". It and the other members of the genus "Viscum" were originally classified in the mistletoe family Viscaceae, but this family has since been sunk into the larger family Santalaceae. Several subspecies are commonly accepted. They differ in fruit colour, leaf shape and size, and most obviously in the host trees utilised. European mistletoe is potentially fatal, in a concentrated form, and people can become seriously ill from eating the berries. The toxic lectin viscumin has been isolated from "Viscum album". Viscumin is a cytotoxic protein (ribosome inactivating
Multilingual Multiscript Plant Name Database Multilingual Multiscript Plant Name Database Multilingual Multiscript Plant Name Database (MMPND) is a multilingual database of names of taxa of plants. It is located at the University of Melbourne and it is managed and maintained by Michel H. Porcher. This database includes the names of taxa of more than 900 genera of higher plants (not counting mushrooms). In addition to the scientific name and synonyms, it contains the names of the taxa in 82 major languages (its website says it includes 70 languages) in which 40 languages or dialects more are included). MMPND is mentioned in many taxa of GRIN-Global