Lawndale Tribune
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Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 1, No. 17 - December 26, 2019
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Poinsettias Came a Long Way
to Become a Floral Tradition
By Rob McCarthy
This is the story of the Christmas poinsettia,
which came a long way from growing wild
in Mexico before an American botanist and
U.S. ambassador changed all that forever. The
beautiful red poinsettia now associated with
Christmas even has its own holiday.
December 12 was National Poinsettia Day
in honor of Joel Roberts Poinsett, an American
botanist, physician and a minister to Mexico.
In 1828, he was dazzled by the beauty of the
crimson red flowering plants that grew wild on
the hillsides in Southern Mexico. So, he sent
cuttings of the plant to his home in Charleston,
South Carolina.
Poinsett died on this day in 1851, and the
U.S. Congress honored him for his contribution
to Christmas and the American floral
industry. While Poinsett introduced the potted
flower to the States, California botanist and
plant breeder Paul Ecke, Jr. is considered the
father of the poinsettia because he developed
breeding techniques that allowed greenhouse
growers to produce millions of poinsettias here
and around the world.
Poinsettias are not only the number oneselling
floral product at Christmas. No other
flower or flowering plant is bought more by
consumers in the United and Canada. A common
misconception about poinsettias is that
the colorful, pointed leaves are the flowers.
The flowers are the yellow clustered buds in
the center, while the colored leafy parts are
actually modified leaves that turn vivid colors
depending on how much sunlight they receive.
Each poinsettia plant starts as an unrooted
cutting, which greenhouses receiving the starter
plants during the summer. Though the plant
gets its start during the longest days of the
year, it needs total darkness up to 16 hours
each day to be ready to burst onto the scene
in late November and early December. Even
the faintest amount of light during the night
will result in a duller color.
Worldwide, growers of poinsettias know
the Ecke family name. An immigrant from
Germany in 1906, Albert Ecke settled in the
Hollywood area. His family grew its own
fruits and vegetables, but within a few years
was selling cut poinsettias at a stand on Sunset
Boulevard. That was 1909 when poinsettias
grew wild in that area of Southern California.
Ecke and his son Paul “had the idea that the
ruby flowers would sell well around Christmas,”
according to a history found at the web site,
poinsettiaday.com. The Eckes scraped together
some money to buy five acres in El Monte
and expanded the family business. The business
grew, and by 1917 the Hollywood-grown
nursery plants were being shipped to Chicago
and New York. Soon after, success led to some
major changes.
Development pressures in Hollywood in the
early 1920s pushed the poinsettia growers to
look elsewhere for land and opportunity. The
Ecke family bought 40 acres in Encinitas,
along what today is the I-5, and their first year
was a complete disaster. Santa Ana winds tore
through the fields of red flowering plants and
ruined Christmas in 1923.
But, the family business bounced back. The
production moved indoors to greenhouses in the
mid-1950s at the suggestion of the founder’s
grandson, Paul Jr., who learned about modern
horticulture techniques at Ohio State University.
Not only was he a grower, but the young Ecke
was an early adopter of product placement. By
getting his family’s crimson plants in front of
a national audience, television viewers who
tuned in for Bob Hope’s annual Christmas
specials came to associate poinsettias with
Christmas cheer.
How the Eckes grew poinsettias was a family
secret until 1991, when a botany student published
a university research paper that spilled the
beans. Now, European greenhouse owners and
nurserymen understood the technique and they
began in earnest to tap into the global demand
at Christmas. The overseas competition drove
down prices, and the Eckes and their Encinitas
compound eventually became ground zero for
breeding research. They created the pink and white
Photo Courtesy of Pixabay.
poinsettia, and the marbled look of the leaves.
There is quite a coincide to the plant’s holiday
and its place in holiday celebrations in Mexico.
The poinsettia is displayed around the Feast of
Our Lady of Guadalupe also celebrated today
by Mexican Romans Catholics. The church
celebrates the appearance of Mary, the mother
of Jesus, to the Mexican peasant Juan Diego
in 1531. This is also the day that former U.S.
ambassador Poinsett died.
There are more than 100 varieties of poinsettias
in production, but red is still the most
popular color with consumers. Salmon, apricot,
yellow, cream and white can be foundtoo. They
come in almost all colors of the rainbow, with
one exception: blue. There are blue poinsettias
for sale, but they are a “designer color” created
with dyes, according to the University of
Vermont, which provides some fun facts about
today’s horticultural honoree.
• Poinsettias can be grown in a backyard.
In the wild or planted in tropical climates,
thepoinsettia can reach heights of 12 feet.
• The botany community originally dismissed
the poinsettia as a weed. It wasn’t until the 1960s
that researchers were able to successfully breed
plants to bloom more than just a few days.
• The poinsettia is not poisonous, despite
what people say. The National Poison Center
in Atlanta and the American Medical Association
have tested the plant and debunked the
myth. Cats and children also may choke on
the fibrous parts, however, and keep poinsettias
out of reach of animals and toddlers.
• The best way to prolong the life of the
plants is to avoid hot or cold drafts. Keep the
soil moist, and keep poinsettias near natural
light and in temperatures of 60 to 70 degrees.
Water when the soil begins to dry, and avoid
soaking the potting soil.
Now, you know the origin of this Christmas
traNow, you know the origin of this Christmastime
flower that reappears each December.
The flower is an American holiday tradition,
with a red and white color palette and its own
holiday, just like jolly St. Nick. •
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