Mistletoe

Mistletoe is a popular and festive plant for the Christmas season! It flourishes around this time of year when very little else does.
It looks something like this:

Picture fromhttp://arizonabeetlesbugsbirdsandmore.blogspot.com

Little known fact about mistletoe:
It's a parasite! It likes to grow in our already sparse trees and steal important nutrients. This can lead to the death of the tree. 
It can also have positive effects on the ecosystem, primarily, for our birds. Mistletoe is a fruit-bearing plant. It is also one of few plants who spread their seeds by "exploding", rocketing the seeds out at upward of 60 miles per hour. Birds then eat this as a source of food. However, the seeds can then be found in their poop, thus growing more mistletoe. It's worth noting that the tree-killing effect of the parasite is a very long term effect. It can take over a year for any noticeable effect to occur. It's also worth noting that the pretty Christmas mistletoe is not the same as type found in trees here.

picture from https://delange.org/

This is the aforementioned Christmas mistletoe. You can already tell that the tree is not from here. Just look at how green it is!
Unfortunately, we have our own type (nicknamed desert mistletoe, or officially: Phoradendron californicum)  that you probably want out of your trees in order to slow their desent. You can only get it out by physically removing it. You can either cut out the entire branch or take the bramble out itself. Be sure to get it away from the trees afterwards too, otherwise it might just grow right back! 

You can find some information about where desert misletoe is located here:
https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=PHCA8
You can find additional information about the parasite here:
https://kelseyyule.wordpress.com/desert-mistletoe-a-misunderstood-but-beneficial-native-plant/