Euphorbia pulcherrima
Poinsettia
The ubiquitous holiday plant, now in even more colors and shapes. I even visited a nursery that painted white poinsettias blue, lavender, yellow and orange. Yuck.
The showy red part of the plant is NOT the flower. It is a bract. Maybe it helps advertise to insects the small, sticky yellowish flowers.
Poinsettias are native to Mexico where they are a tall shrub. The holiday plants we buy today are bred for size and bract characteristics, but could easily grow to be 10 feet tall if planted outdoors in zone 9-11. In the greenhouse the plants are sprayed with chemicals to keep them the proper height to be decorations.
Their common name is after J. R. Poinsett, a doctor and botanist who in 1825 was made the first US Ambassador to Mexico.
The building downtown I helped decorate had twenty-five around each tree. I wheeled them from the staging area to the lobby in a few trips on a double decker cart. One plant apparently had gotten a cold draft- it was completely shrived and wilted. Each plant had a care tag that was removed and a shiny red pot cover that I fluffed out around it.
How poisonous are they? The tag says, “ORNAMENTAL PRODUCT—NOT EDIBLE.” The Poison control center says “they are not considered to be very toxic”. The American Society of Florists say “Poinsettias are not toxic.” It seems there is more concern about skin irritation than poisoning from ingestion. Common sense says to exercise caution with all plants in the Spurge family (Euphorbiaceae.) One of their characteristics is a milky sap. This latex can cause severe contact dermatitis. The general feeling among gardeners and hikers about this is that not everyone is very affected by it, but repeated exposure can cause sensitivity to develop. The chemicals used in floriculture production are another concern.
