“I won a prize!” Billy said, as we left the party. “I won a poinsettia, but I don’t want my cat Sparkle to eat it, because it’s poison.”

Help me shatter this old myth. Poinsettias are not poisonous unless one eats many of those red bracts which are the showy part of the plant. 

I never met anybody who even considered doing such a thing. Sparkle’s natural feline curiosity might lead the cat to sample a leaf, but one taste would be more than enough.

Here’s a pretty plant from south of the U.S. border, now one of the many symbols of Christmas. Once considered a roadside weed, it was discovered by physician/botanist Joel Roberts Poinsett when he was our country’s first ambassador to Mexico. In 1825, he sent stems for propagation to his greenhouse in South Carolina, and that was the beginning of its connection to our Christmas celebration.

I’ve just learned that December 12 is National Poinsettia Day, chosen because that was the day Ambassador Poinsett died. I also learned that its name is capitalized as an honor to a person.

Those bracts are the showy parts surrounding the small yellow-and-red nubs which are the real flowers. The green leaves have their own angular shape. In the U.S., plants may be specially grown from six inches to five feet, depending on their culture. Break a brittle leaf or stem and it will bleed a gooey sap.  Once, this was used to reduce fevers. Anyone allergic to latex shouldn’t touch the sap because it could lead to skin irritation. In the 14th century, the bracts were used to make a reddish dye. 

Botanically, the poinsettia is Euphorbia pulcherrima, which means “most beautiful Euphorbia.” (Pronounce that “you-FOR-bee-a  pull-KERRY-ma.” Poinsettias’ other names include “lobster flower” and “flame-leaf flower.” In Chile and Peru, it’s called “crown of the Andes.” 

The plant, which must wait for long nights and short days to bloom, traveled to Egypt in the 1860s. How? Why?

Never willing to leave Mother Nature alone, breeders have developed miniature poinsettias and others with pink, marbled, white, even orange and purple bracts. There are short plants and others even up to five feet tall. However, in the Caribbean islands, I’ve seen them as lofty as 10 feet.

Poinsettias are not annuals, although many people throw them out when the color has gone. I have grown them in the ground, even in Pennsylvania heat, as a piece of green background. The leaves burgeoned and were so lush that visitors asked what that exotic foliage plant was, not recognizing it for its true identity.

Other flowering plants that appear around Christmas include cyclamen (good for warm-blooded and thrifty people because it does best in a cool room); paper-white narcissus as well as a yellow-flowering one; spotless white chrysanthemums; tiny pepper plants with spiky vermilion fruits; and amaryllis or Hippeastrum.

Pick up poinsettias at supermarkets, hardware stores, greenhouses or Big Boxes. They’re everywhere these days. Just be sure to choose the most beautiful ones.     

And remember: poinsettias are not poisonous.