Wild poinsettias add Christmas color to the natural SC landscape

It wouldn’t look like the Christmas season without poinsettias.

These showy plants are arguably the most popular potted plants in America. Although most are sold just during the few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, retail sales total hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

The commercial success of poinsettias traces back to the early 1900s, when nursery owner Albert Ecke and his family began cultivating and selling the plants commercially.

Today there are over 100 varieties of poinsettia and a range of colors, from deep red to pink, white and coral.

It was a South Carolina politician and diplomat, Joel Roberts Poinsett (1779-1851) who originally introduced the poinsettia to the U.S. The plant was later named in his honor.

Poinsett was a member of the state legislature and the first U.S. ambassador to Mexico. He was also an amateur botanist and, in the 1820’s, brought back to his greenhouse an attractive shrub, Euphorbia pulcherrima, native to Mexico and Central America.

The plant had been used for centuries by the Aztecs for dyes and medicine. It also played traditional roles in Mexican folklore and Christmas ceremonies.

A member of the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae), poinsettia is related to garden crotons, cassava, and the castor oil plant. Its large, colorful “petals” are actually modified leaves called bracts. The true flowers, housed in small, cup-like structures, are small and inconspicuous.

The Lowcountry has its own native version of the commercial poinsettia. Called fire-on-the-mountain or wild poinsettia (Euphorbia heterophylla var. cyathophora), it’s common throughout the Southeast in waste areas, roadsides and other disturbed habitats.

Wild poinsettia isn’t as showy as its exotic relative, but it displays a resemblance, with bright red blotches at the bases of its green bracts.

Although often dismissed as a weed, our own wild poinsettia can be a nice addition to a butterfly or pollinator garden. Its tiny flowers attract skipper butterflies, carpenter bees and small wasps. And the plant persists into December, contributing an understated splash of color to the landscape during the Christmas season.