Poinsettias, the Most Popular Potted House Plant

Well, Thanksgiving is the official kick off of the holiday season and the time Poinsettias hit the store shelves. The actual genus species name is Euphorbia pulcherrima.

Native to Mexico, Euphoria pulcherrima, actually is a small shrub or tree, which can reach a height of 2 to 16 feet. The flowers on Euphoria pulcherrima are actually small yellow blossoms surrounded by colorful leaves called bracts. Typically, the bracts come in a variety of colors from orange, pale greens, pinks, or whites with red being the most popular and traditional color.

Euphorbia pulcherrima was renamed Poinsettia after Joel Roberts Poinsett who was the first first United States Ambassador to Mexico appointed by President John Quincy Adams in the 1820's. Poinsett took some of the cuttings of Euphorbia pulcherrima back to his green house in South Carolina and thereafter the offspring were popularly referred to as Poinsettia.

Ambassador Joel Poinsett

If you want to learn to share some Poinsettia facts and trivia with your dinner guests there is a great site, University of Illinois Poinsettia Pages.    When you review this site, you will learn that

• Poinsettias are not poisonous to people and might cause indigestion only if you ate over 500 bracts.
• Poinsettias are the most popular potted houseplant and  represent over 85 percent of the potted plant sales during the holiday season, with  ninety percent of all poinsettias are exported from the United States.
• Poinsettias are commercially grown in all 50 states with California being the top poinsettia producing state.
• The Paul Ecke Ranch in California grows over 80 percent of poinsettias in the United States for the wholesale market and Ninety per cent of all the flowering poinsettias in the world got their start at the Paul Ecke Ranch.

• With $220 million worth of poinsettias sold during the holiday season, seventy-four percent of Americans still prefer red poinsettias with the remainder of consumers selecting whites and pinks.