URBANA — When it arrives to the most preferred holiday getaway plant, the winner is stunning. With their varying shades of cheery shades, poinsettias are the best-promoting potted plant in the United States and Canada.
There are more than 100 kinds of poinsettia, from the standard crimson crops to pink, white, yellow, and purple. If taken care of effectively, their shiny displays can very last for various weeks, claims Ken Johnson, College of Illinois Extension horticulture educator.
“The coloured areas of the crops aren’t flowers,” Johnson states. “They are in fact modified leaves called bracts.”
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The greenish-yellow flowers, cyathia, are in the center of the bracts. Poinsettias will fall their bracts and leaves the moment their bouquets have drop all their pollen. So, for lengthy-lasting poinsettias, decide on crops that have little or no pollen demonstrating in their bouquets.
A single of the most very long-standing myths about poinsettias is its toxicity.
“Contrary to well-liked belief, poinsettias are not poisonous,” Johnson claims. “The misconception commenced in 1919, when a kid allegedly died soon after eating a poinsettia leaf.”
Though this was never proved and was afterwards decided to be hearsay, the story has persisted. In point, a analyze by Ohio Condition University confirmed that a 50-pound child would have to eat extra than 1 1/4 lbs . of the plant, 500 to 600 leaves, to have any damaging results.
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