In November of 1951, the Peoria Park District’s Luthy Botanical Garden opened in its current facility in Glen Oak Park. On November 18, the Garden’s 2011 Poinsettia Show began, and as always, hundreds of beautiful poinsettias and decorated trees  adorn the Conservatory and transformed it into a spectacular wonderland. Over the years, a visit to Luthy’s Poinsettia Show and Candlelight Walks has become a holiday tradition for hundreds of area families. And because 2011 marks the Garden’s 60th anniversary, the Poinsettia Show, with a rich history of its own, will be especially festive.

The Tradition of the Poinsettia: Fact and Fiction

December 12 is National Poinsettia Day in the United States. By decree of Congress, it marks the death of Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first U.S. ambassador to Mexico, who shipped cuttings of the native Mexican plant to his South Carolina greenhouse in 1825. He propagated the plants and sent them to friends and botanical gardens around the country.

But the history of the Poinsettia goes back much farther than Mr. Poinsett. The Aztecs used the bountiful plant to make a red dye when they reigned in southern Mexico. The white sap stored in the red bracts, which is commonly and incorrectly considered poisonous to humans, was used by the Aztecs as medicine for fevers. The sap and bracts can cause an upset stomach if consumed in large enough quantities.

A Mexican folktale tells how a poor Mexican girl with no gift to present to the Christ Child at Christmas Eve services gathered some plants (poinsettias) into a bouquet on her way to church. She approached the altar with love and reverence, and the bouquet turned into brilliant red blossoms. That is why flowers are known as the Flores de la Noche Buena, or Flowers of the Holy Night, and bloom each year during the Christmas season.

Horticultural Terminology: What is a Bract?

Because of their varied colors and the way they are grouped, people often think the bracts of the poinsettia are the flower petals of the plant, but they are actually the leaves. The true flowers are grouped within the small yellow structures found in the center of each leaf bunch. The colors of the bracts – which are most often red but can also be orange, pale green, pink, white, burgundy or marbled – come from photoperiodism, meaning they require darkness for 12 to 14 consecutive hours to change color. This leads into the complicated subject of how to get a Poinsettia to do what you want it to do – like exhibit color during the specific dates of the Luthy Botanical Garden Poinsettia Show.

Care and Forced Blooming

Horticulturist Elona Mason knows all about this subject, because she has been entrusted with the care of the tiny, two inch Poinsettia cuttings from the time they come from the specialty nursery — usually in July or August—to Luthy Botanical Garden. Long before anyone else is thinking about the holidays, Elona is already preparing for them every day – first by researching the market and selecting the varieties to star in this year’s show, and then by caring for the plants and “forcing” them  to  bloom when expected. How is “forced blooming” accomplished? The concept is simple, but stringent control is required to obtain success. Starting anytime from late September to the first of October, the plants must experience total darkness for 12-14 hours a day. Unfortunately, any small light can upset the process. During the day, the plants should get six or more hours of sunlight.