FUN FACTS ABOUT POINSETTIAS

Are you a trivia buff? If that’s the case, maybe you’d be focused on understanding a bit of bit extra in regards to the poinsettia plant you purchase each Christmas.

For instance, do you know that the poinsettia’s essential attraction just isn’t its flowers, however its leaves? The flowers of the plant are the yellow clustered buds within the middle. The coloured leafy elements are literally bracts or modified leaves.

Crimson is the preferred shade, accounting for roughly three-quarters of all gross sales nationwide, adopted by white and pink. Poinsettias are available in quite a lot of colours from purple, salmon, and apricot to yellow, cream, and white. There are additionally uncommon speckled or marbled varieties like “Jingle Bells” and “Sweet Cane” with a number of colours blended collectively. New varieties are launched yearly with much more variation in top and colours.

What number of poinsettias do you assume are offered in a 12 months?

In case you guessed round 60 million, you’d be within the ballpark. Would you consider that final 12 months greater than 65 million had been offered nationwide? Poinsettias accounted for one-third of gross sales of all flowering potted crops. In financial phrases, that’s $237 million out of a complete of $781 million in gross sales of all flowering potted crops!

Though each state in the US grows poinsettias commercially, California is the highest producer with about 27 million pots grown, adopted by Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, and Michigan, every with about 14 million pots.

Do you know that within the wild, the poinsettia can attain heights of 12 toes with leaves measuring six to eight inches throughout? It’s truly a small tropical tree belonging to the Euphorbia plant household. Its botanical identify is Euphorbia pulcherrima though in English-speaking international locations it’s extra generally often known as the poinsettia. A local of southern Mexico, the poinsettia blooms in December and has been utilized in that nation to brighten church buildings for hundreds of years.

Within the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, the Aztecs used the poinsettia leaves to dye material for clothes and the sap for medicinal functions, together with to assist management fevers. Additionally they thought-about the purple shade a logo of purity, and so poinsettias had been historically a part of non secular ceremonies.

You in all probability know that Dr. Joel Roberts Poinsett, an newbie botanist and first United States ambassador to Mexico, launched the plant that grew to become often known as the poinsettia to this nation. He found a shrub with brilliantly coloured purple leaves rising by the facet of the highway in Taxco, Mexico, in December 1828 and despatched cuttings dwelling to his plantation in Greenville, South Carolina.

However do you know that almost all botanists at the moment dismissed the poinsettia as a weed? Happily, Poinsett continued to check and breed this plant in his greenhouse, sharing crops along with his horticulturist associates. It quickly gained acceptance as a vacation plant, regardless of its very brief bloom time. It wasn’t till the Nineteen Sixties that researchers had been in a position to efficiently breed crops to bloom greater than just some days.

Right here’s one other little bit of fascinating trivia. December 12 is Nationwide Poinsettia Day. By no means heard of it? Consider it or not, the US has noticed this official day for the reason that mid-1800s. It honors the person and the plant he launched. Poinsett died Dec.12, 1851.

True or False? The poinsettia is a toxic plant. In case you answered false, you’re right. The plant has been examined repeatedly and cleared of this cost by the Nationwide Poison Middle in Atlanta, Georgia, and the American Medical Affiliation. The POINSINDEX Data Service, the principle data useful resource for poison management facilities throughout the nation, reviews that even when a 50-pound baby consumed greater than 500 poinsettia bracts–the quantity examined in scientific experiments–the results wouldn’t be deadly. Even at this excessive degree, no toxicity was discovered.

Nevertheless, this doesn’t imply that poinsettias are supposed to be eaten. If ingested, this plant could cause abdomen irritation and discomfort. Cats and kids additionally could choke on the fibrous elements, so make sure you maintain these crops out of their attain. The sticky white sap additionally could trigger pores and skin irritation for some individuals.

Have you learnt the easiest way to extend the lifetime of this Christmas plant? Keep away from scorching or chilly drafts, maintain the soil moist not soggy, and place in a room with adequate pure mild and temperatures of round 60 to 70 levels F. Water when the soil begins to dry. As soon as the leaves start to wilt, it’s too late.

Above all, defend it from publicity to wind or chilly on the best way dwelling from the shop. Poinsettias are extremely delicate to chilly temperatures and even a couple of minutes of publicity to 50-degree F or decrease temperatures will trigger them to wilt. However when cared for correctly, poinsettias normally will outlast your need to maintain them!

FUN FACTS ABOUT POINSETTIAS

By Dr. Leonard Perry Extension Greenhouse and Nursery Crops Specialist College of Vermont