2017 ASHS Annual Conference

The domestication of the poinsettia has occurred over multiple centuries. The poinsettia was originally cultivated by the Aztecs in the 1500’s, and then sent to the United States by Joel Poinsett in 1828, whereupon it rapidly gained popularity. By 1900, several selections were common in the florist trade. These included white and double-flowering forms, and by the early 1910’s the plant had become an important commercial crop for the Christmas holiday season. Paul Ecke Sr. was the first commercial grower to actively introduce new cultivars into the marketplace in the 1930’s. Most of these were naturally-occurring mutations from the cultivar known as ‘Oakleaf’. Dr. Robert Stewart from the USDA-ARS began the first breeding program in the 1950’s. His selections were handed over to the commercial industry in the 1960’s and several businesses began their own proprietary breeding programs. With each decade came new cultivars with enhanced traits, including leaf retention in the postharvest environment, larger bracts, horizontal (non-drooping) bracts, tighter clusters of cyathia, enhanced lateral branching, deeper red bract pigmentation, darker green foliage, reduced stem elongation, earlier flowering, improved postharvest longevity, and an expanded range of bract color, color patterns, and shapes. During the fall of 2016, twenty-seven cultivars of poinsettias originating from the 1920’s, including ‘Oakleaf’, through current day cultivars were grown along with a plant recently collected from a wild population in Jalisco, Mexico. Phenotypic traits were measured for the purpose of describing the changes that have occurred over the past century of domestication of this important floriculture crop. These changes will be demonstrated and discussed.