The poinsettia plant ( Euphorbia pulcherrima ) is the equivalent of Mariah Carey ’s " All I require for Christmas Is You . " You do n’t even commend they subsist until the first day you take the air into a store in November and all of a sudden it ’s the vacation season andChristmasis sexual climax . And then you ’re positively bomb with them until January 1 , at which point Mariah Carey in all probability have hergiant royalty checkfor the twelvemonth and goes on holiday , and all thepoinsettiasjust … vanish .
But just like Mariah ’s pop Christmas bop , poinsettias are economically important — they ’re thehighest betray potted plantin the world . During the vacation season , the six calendar week leading up to Christmas,$250 million Charles Frederick Worth of Euphorbia pulcherrima plants — 70 million plants — are deal in the United States alone , and the plants are evenmore pop in Europe . There are over 100 different kind of poinsettia works patent in the United States .
History of the Poinsettia
Poinsettias were cultivated by theAztecs , and though they did n’t originate in the capital city of Tenochtitlan — now Mexico City — Aztec royal house imported the flowersfrom lower elevations during the winter months for usage as a medicine to control pyrexia and as a ruby - purple fabric dye . The Nahua people of Mexico and Central America call these Aztec favoritescuetlaxochitl , but they go bymany other name calling , too — lobster flower , flame leaf flower , " La Flor de la Nochebuena " ( Christmas Eve efflorescence ) .
But " poinsettia " is probably the weirdest name of all because it ’s just a shout out to the American diplomat who is credited with being the first to bring them back to the U.S. from Mexico in the nineteenth C . Joel Roberts Poinsettwas the first U.S. curate to Mexico , and as an unpaid botanist , is said to have mail some cutting back to his home in South Carolina from Southern Mexico in 1928 , although there is no incontrovertible substantiation of this .
What is known is that the works was on showing in Philadelphia in 1829 , link up with Poinsett ’s name . The plant was immediately democratic and was known henceforward as the " poinsettia , " although it did n’t find itsofficial Latin nameuntil 1934 when German botanist Karl Willde was given a press clipping by a Scottish friend who had seen it in Philadelphia and named itEuphorbia pulcherrima .
In the twenties the Ecke family of Encinitas , California started farming poinsettias , and they inexhaustibly push them as a symbol of the Christmas time of year . Today , around 70 pct of the poinsettia plants you buy in the United Statescome fromEcke Ranch , andpoinsettia careis their lifeblood .
How to Care For and Keep a Poinsettia Alive
Every houseplant — even a hyper - seasonal one — is observe animated somewhere year - rotund . Poinsettias hail from the mid - elevation regions of Mexico and Central America , where they can grow over 10 feet ( 3 meters ) grandiloquent as a perennial winter - flowering shrub with milklike sap and branches so long they sometimes attend like vines . The big , showy red , white or pink flowers we ’re used to seeing are n’t actually the lobster plant ’s blossom at all , but modify folio called bracts . The efflorescence buds are the small scandalmongering bud in the middle of the colorful bracts .
When you buy a Christmas flower at the grocery store , it comes already sporting its brightly colored , fancy bracts . You have no approximation how hard it was to get them there . Fritz Bahr , the writer of"Fritz Bahr ’s commercial-grade floriculture : a practical manual for the retail agriculturalist " ( 1937 ) , described the delicate and finicky poinsettia so : " Perhaps no other industrial plant or flush we care during Christmas hebdomad is more shortsighted lived , wilts quicker or is more disappointing to those who get it ; yet , when the next Christmas comes around , there come again the same requirement for Euphorbia pulcherrima and the disappointments of a year ago are all forget . "
Over time , floriculturists get over some of these job , but until the mid-1950s , growing Euphorbia pulcherrima and getting them into the manpower of Christmas revelers in comparatively near shape was a tangible thaumaturgy . That was , until somebody realized poinsettias need just one affair to turn their green bract red , pinkish or snowy : full darkness .
In rescript to hasten your poinsettia plant to createflower budsand to alter the colour of its leaves from greenin clock time for Christmas , it must be hold in ended duskiness for 16 hour per day . The witholding of illumination prevents the plant from producing chlorophyll , which is what earn flora parts green . This changes the bracts to crimson , pink or clean , depend on the motley of poinsettia .
So , somewhere around September 21 — right around the fall equinoctial point — pull your painted leaf out of its gay windowpane and move it into 16 hours of uninterrupted dark ( put the plant under a boxful if necessary to provide total darkness ) , interchange with 8 hours of bright light every day . During the dour period , the plant can not meet even the slightest bit of Light Within at any metre . This applies to your class - old Christmas star as well : If you need your plant to bring about flower bud again and to change color , it ’s the daily duration of complete dark , not burnished daylight , that matters most . Discontinue this around Thanksgiving .
After Thanksgiving , keep your poinsettia in brilliant light or the full sunshine of a sunny windowpane , not maintain the potting soil moist or adding excess water , but watering it when the well - debilitate soil is juiceless to the touch . Poinsettias favour temperature around or above 65 degrees Fahrenheit ( 18 degrees Celsius ) . They will bloom from Christmas until about April — at this point it ’s a good estimation to thin out your painted leaf down to a 3- to 8 - inch ( 8- to 20 - centimeter ) stem turn and have it regrow , get the cognitive operation over again until the next year .
Are Poinsettias Poisonous to Pets and Children?
One common urban fable about poinsettias is that they ’re toxic to people and brute . OneOhio State University studyshowed that a 50 - British pound sterling ( 23 - kilo ) child would have to eat over 1 pound ( 0.45 kilo ) of poinsettia parting — between 500 and 600 leave — for perniciousness to become a problem . However , they certainly do n’t smack very undecomposed , and the child who consume them would in all likelihood get a fearsome bay window ache long before they were poison .
The milklike sap of the poinsettia is another matter . Most members of theEuphorbiafamily have toxic sap , but the toxin in poinsettias is very balmy . However , those with sensitive hide should avoid bear on poinsettia sap , just in case .
