The 'modern' poinsettia plant began in Jersey City; who knew?

by The Jersey Journal
Wednesday December 24, 2008, 12:22 PM

Star-Ledger file photo

The "modern" Poinsettia plant started in Jersey City
No, the poinsettia, often called the Christmas flower, didn't originate in Jersey City. It's originally from Mexico, according to story in today's Daily Leader, an Arkansas newspaper.

But the lush red flower plant most of us refer to as a poinsettia, which is really the seedling cultivar Oak Leaf, was first grown in Jersey City in 1923, according to the story.
Who knew?

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The flower of Christmas

By Bill Shrum
Daily Leader
Wed Dec 24, 2008, 10:06 AM CST
Stuttgart, Ark.

The Poinsettia, often called "The Christmas Flower," is a traditional plant during the Christmas season, seen in flower shops, churches, schools and at various Christmas pageants and plays throughout the city.

Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States Ambassador to Mexico in the John Quincy Adams administration, first introduced poinsettias in the United States in 1825.

Poinsett was also a botanist when he spotted the flower on a hillside near Taxco and had a number of these plants sent to his home in Greenville, South Carolina.

These plants did well in his greenhouse and the plants were distributed to botanical gardens and to his horticultural friends, including John Bartram of Philadelphia.

Bartram, in turn, supplied the plant to Robert Buist, a nurseryman who first sold the plant as a Euphorbia pulchrrima. The name Poinsettia has remained the accepted name in English speaking countries.
The modern era of poinsettia culture began with the introduction of the seedling cultivar Oak Leaf, which was reportedly grown originally in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1923.

From 1923 until the early 1960s, all of the principal cultivars of commercial importance were selections or sports from this original Oak Leaf seedling.

During the middle 1950s poinsettia breeding programs were initiated at several institutions, including the Pennsylvania State University, the University of Maryland, the USDA Research Center at Beltsville, Maryland and by a number of commercial horticulture firms including Azalealand in Lincoln, Nebraska.

With the introduction of the Cultivar in 1963, poinsettias entered a new era with stiff stems and foliage retention characteristics, which provided the trade with the first longer-lasting cultivar of commercial importance.

In 1964, Annette Hegga Red of Norway introduced an entirely new type of multi-flowered plant to the trade because of their ability to produce from five to eight blooms from a pinch and because of their ease of production.
According to the USDA, poinsettias continue to the most popular potted flowering plant in the United States and add beauty and color in any home, business or church at Christmas.

"We sell a great deal of Poinsettias during Christmas," Angie Lawson, owner of Stuttgart Flower and Gift, said. "The just add color to the holiday season."

Lawson said the shop sells a number of the plants to churches and individuals, which are in the colors of pink, red, white, marble.
"We have one poinsettia called 'Jingle Bells'," Lawson said. "We also have one that looks like someone has spilled paint on the leaves."
Poinsettias are sold worldwide in every country in the world.