DREAMING OF A WHITE POINSETTIA
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, one plant seems to come out of the woodwork to redefine the whole festive landscape.
The red and green poinsettia is as timeless as Bing Crosby crooning “White Christmas,” though the appearance of more than 30 million plants is anything but automatic. Since the spring, skilled but nervous growers across the land have been raising one of their most economically important, and finicky, crops.
This is only one aspect of poinsettia dynamics. Since a canny California cut-flower grower named Paul Ecke Sr. came up with the idea of the poinsettia as a potted plant for the holidays, breeders have been trying to perfect it.
Some of the shifts have been esthetic: decorator poinsettias in lime green, ivory or burgundy, poinsettias whose petal-like bracts are flecked, marbled, splashed and otherwise turned into something that will spur your Aunt Mabel to wonder what they will think of next.
Other breeding improvements are not obvious to consumers, but critical to growers and retailers in the way the plant can be grown and shipped and hold up outside the greenhouse.
As recently as 20 years ago or so, poinsettias were seen as the plant you hoped would not break apart or drop most of its leaves before Santa arrived.
But over the past two to three years, consumers have seen a conspicuous shift in the look of the poinsettia. The classic ebullient poinsettias still predominate, especially the reds, but you may notice some curiously different plants. They are smaller and more compact but effervescent with spear-shaped petals that appear in whorls layered one on top of the other. (Poinsettia “flowers” are botanically bracts that surround the true flowers.)
The range of varieties is still limited, but already they are available in both soft and vivid pinks, the latter with a neon glow. They’re so hot, they’re cool.
Another significant colour shift is in a white variety named Princettia Pure White. It is a clear bone white, unlike the creamy whites of other poinsettias. It is a tint that poinsettia breeders have been chasing for decades.
To date, all poinsettias were derived from a single species found in western Mexico named Euphorbia pulcherrima. This grows into a tall, rangy shrub whose scarlet bracts appear in the winter. The smaller and floriferous new varieties are hybrids between this species and another, a summer bloomer named the dogwood poinsettia (Euphorbia cornastra). Rarely seen, either in the wild or in cultivation, specimens were collected from Mexico in the early 1990s by graduate students at the University of Texas.
One of them was Alice Le Duc, who saw the potential value of the clear white flowers in crossbreeding with the Christmas poinsettia, and she passed some of her stock to the breeders at the Ecke Ranch. (The company has since been sold to a European breeder, Dümmen Orange, but maintains its own breeding program.) The new hybrids are now reaching consumers in three separate brands: Princettia, from Suntory Flowers; Luv U Pink, from the Paul Ecke Ranch; and J’Adore, from Dümmen Orange.
John Dole, who co-ordinates North Carolina State University’s poinsettia trials program, sees the hybrids as a milestone in the history of the poinsettia.
“It’s pretty major, and it could be on a par with some of the other breakthroughs,” he said.
These include poinsettias that hold their leaves and grow bushy without having to pinch stems.
Le Duc said a well-grown plant in the house could keep blooming until April. It is this stamina and the strong pink colours that prompted Dümmen Orange to pitch the hybrids in Europe as a plant for the Valentine’s Day and Easter markets. This hasn’t been successful to date. It seems breeders will have to work on more red varieties if the hybrids are to reach their Yuletide potential.
Meanwhile, the conveyor belt of traditional poinsettia breeding continues to whir along.
Gary Vollmer, product manager for Selecta Poinsettias, said his company is focusing on improving traditional red varieties. The problem with many of the trendy crimson and maroon varieties is that they fade grey, he said.
“Our goal is to get that saturated red but not by bringing in blue,” he said.