GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Some new treats are available for the holidays, but don’t look for them in the candy aisle or bakery — try the florist instead.
These indulgences are eye candy, with names like Christmas Cookie, Santa Claus Candy, Peppermint, Champagne and Plum Pudding. The food-themed names belong to several new varieties of poinsettia developed this year.
University of Florida environmental horticulturist James Barrett said companies in California and Germany that developed the roughly two dozen new strains of poinsettias for this year are responsible for naming the new varieties.
“All the Christmas names related to food are fairly interesting and new for poinsettias because we haven’t had those types of names before,” said Barrett, a professor with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. [ read more ]
Source: http://news.ufl.edu
History and Legend The Aztecs called poinsettias “Cuetlaxochitl.” During the 14th - 16th century the sap was used to control fevers and the bracts (modified leaves) were used to make a reddish dye.
Montezuma, the last of the Aztec kings, would have poinsettias brought into what now is Mexico City by caravans because poinsettias could not be grown in the high altitude. Continue Reading »
Around 120 million years ago, when the dinosaurs ruled the land, much of the world was covered by primordial forest, and plant life was rapidly becoming diverse, flowering plants were evolving and one of the first of these was the orchid.
As the world underwent many changes species of both plant and animal life died out or were replaced, but the orchid family expanded, populating every corner of the world except Antarctica, living on trees, rocks, in the ground or under it, tropical rainforest or lush grassland, high mountain or bog, they thrived, nothing seems capable of upsetting their evolutionary process , indeed it is generally accepted that in the world today, there are around 35,000 different species of orchid in existence; many myths abound concerning them, the most common of which is that they are parasitical plants, this is not so, orchids grow on trees - true, but they do not feed from them, they use the host merely as somewhere to be.
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