DECEMBER 2016 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


Celebrating the colours of Christmas The plants we covet during the holidays have had a big influence on the colours of the season


Okay. Here’s a Christmas quiz, herbivore style:


When is a flower just a leaf? What are witches’ brooms? Where can the first


recorded Christmas tree be found?


Research MARGARET EVANS


For sure, Christmas is about Christ’s birth and snow and plum pudding and gifts and family gatherings. But it is also one of the most colourful times of year with all the plants we bring indoors and decorate.


Think of the rich reds, oranges and pinks of poinsettias, all the shades of green of traditional fir and spruce trees, the soft greens and pearly white berries of mistletoe and the sharp greens and red berries of holly.


All this isn’t by accident, of course, and there are some pretty cool myths and stories that launched our love of plants at Christmas. Poinsettias are native to Central America and named after Joel Poinsett, the first US envoy to Mexico who introduced the plant to the US in 1825.


But the plant already had a


Christmas connection springing from 16th century Mexico. A poor little girl called Pepita was inspired by an angel to gather weeds from the roadside for Jesus’ birthday and place them in front of the church altar. Crimson


leaves sprang from the weeds to become the Christmas


plant, the star-


shaped leaf pattern resembling the Star of Bethlehem and the red, of course, the blood of Christ. Coloured poinsetta leaves aren’t actually flowers but are leafy bracts that will change colour as the length of daylight diminishes in fall. The plant needs complete darkness (at least 12 hours per day for at least five days) to trigger the photoperiodism that gives the leaves those gorgeous red, orange, pink or speckled colours.


Some 75 million poinsettias are sold across North America in December with over two million sold in British Columbia, alone generating a consumer spending spree of over $300 million. About 80% of those poinsettias will be the red variety with 20% being novelty, designer-style or a funky avant-garde type. There are over 100 cultivated varieties.


DAVID SCHMIDT Christmas kisses


By contrast, mistletoe is not something you want to grow. As a hemi-parasite, it grows on the branches of trees and shrubs and earned the ancient Greek name Phoradendron for “tree thief.” Trees infested with mistletoe invariably die from the parasitic growth. There are 1,300 species worldwide and, in Canada and the US, there are about 30 species.


The mistletoe masses look like tangled baskets and they are sometimes called witches’ brooms, great for nesting birds including wrens, chickadees, mourning doves, pygmy nuthatches, tree squirrels and spotted owls. It’s pretty significant that, according to the National Wildlife


Federation, researchers found that 43% of spotted owl nests in one forest were associated with witches’ brooms and 64%


of all Cooper’s hawk nests in northeastern Oregon were in mistletoe.


A tiny sprig is all you need for that puckering up custom of kissing someone under the mistletoe. A Scandinavian myth tells of Baldur the Beautiful, the god of light, who dreamed his life was in danger. His mother, Frigga, travelled the world asking everyone not to hurt her son. But she forgot to ask


mistletoe. Loki, god of fire and envious of Baldur, used a dart poisoned with mistletoe to kill him. Frigg’s tears became the white berries of the plant and she vowed that never again would it be used to kill anyone but to bring peace with a kiss on anyone who passed under it.


Oh! Christmas tree!


Christmas tree farming is a major seasonal industry.


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Today, British Columbia produces about 900,000 Christmas trees and there are over 450 growers in the province with 200 in the Kootenay area, 200 in the Fraser Valley and on Vancouver Island, and 50 in the Okanagan and Thompson areas.


Nationally, some three to six million trees are produced annually on 2,381 farms. The 2014 farm cash receipts for Christmas trees in Canada amounted to $64.4 million, up 16.6% from $55.3 million in 2013.


Fir trees, wreaths and garlands were in play as decorative focal points to symbolize eternal life among the early Egyptians, Chinese and Hebrews. But the modern Christmas tree is thought to have originated during the Renaissance of early modern Germany. Its 16th century origins are sometimes associated with Protestant Christian reformer Martin Luther who is said to have been the first person to add lighted candles to an evergreen tree – maybe not the wisest move.


As for the first recorded Christmas tree, it is on the keystone sculpture of a private home in Turckheim, north-eastern France, dating from 1576. Turckheim is known for its wines, Alsatian cuisine, stunning scenery, medieval wall and its black- cloaked night watchman. Merry colourful Christmas!


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