poinsettia: see spurge spurge , common name for members of the Euphorbiaceae, a family of herbs, shrubs, and trees of greatly varied structure and almost cosmopolitan distribution, although most species are tropical. In the United States the family is most common in the Southeast.
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Popular flowering plant (Euphorbia pulcherrima), best-known member of the diverse spurge family. Native to Mexico and Central America, it grows in moist, wet, wooded ravines and on rocky hillsides. What appear to be flower petals are actually coloured leaflike bracts that surround a central cluster of tiny yellow flowers. Cultivated varieties are available with white, pink, mottled, and striped bracts, but the solid red varieties are in greatest demand during the Christmas season. Milky latex in the stems and leaves can be irritating to sensitized persons or animals, but the claim that poinsettias are deadly poisonous is greatly exaggerated.
poinsettia
Poinsettia
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poinsettia
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Poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima).
(credit: Grant Heilman-EB Inc.)
poinsettia
a euphorbiaceous shrub, Euphorbia (or Poinsettia) pulcherrima, of Mexico and Central America, widely cultivated for its showy scarlet bracts, which resemble petals
Poinsettia
(Euphorbia pulcherrima), a shrub native to Central America. This plant reaches a height of 1.5 m and contains a milky juice. The leaves are ovate-oblong with notched margins, and the inflorescences of unisexual flowers are encircled by large flaming red lanceolate bracts. The poinsettia blooms in December and January; it requires short periods of light (no more than ten hours) for normal development. It is cultivated in greenhouses, where it is kept in darkness for a certain number of hours and treated with substances to retard stem growth. Varieties with pink, white, and orange bracts have been produced.
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