American Green Poinsettia Gardens for America's Toothed Spurge

Summary: American green poinsettia gardens grow André Michaux's toothed spurge, the green poinsettia relative of the world-famous Christmas poinsettia.

closeup of green poinsettia, also known as toothed spurge, literal translation of scientific name Euphorbia dentata: Frank Vincentz, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

American green poinsettia gardens answer to the life cycle requirements of green poinsettias, one of the two other poinsettias related to the beloved, iconic Christmas poinsettia of continental North and South America.

Green poinsettia and, as a literal translation of the most accepted scientific name, toothed spurge bring to two the number of the annual's common names. Membership in the Euphorbiaceae family of spurges confirms the same genus, separate species status of green and wild poinsettias respectively as Euphorbia dentata and Euphorbia cyathophora. Less close relationships to other poinsettias draw U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Joel Poinsett's (March 2, 1779-Dec. 12, 1851) Christmas poinsettia into the genus Poinsettia.

Green poinsettias elicit interest for blooming repeatedly from July through September and greening such disturbed, open sites as abandoned fields, parking lots, railroads, roadsides and wastelands.

Flora Boreali-Americana of 1803 furnishes the taxonomic description of green poinsettias by André Michaux (March 7, 1746-Oct. 11, 1802), botany-trained explorer from Satory, Versailles, Yvelines, France.

Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands get no mention among the native regions of Michaux's poinsettia in continental or insular North and South America. Dry, nutrient-poor, sunlit clayey, gravelly, sandy soils have no known green poinsettia populations in Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and New Hampshire. Michaux's poinsettia is not included among the vegetation of New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Sandy soils juxtapose American green poinsettia gardens and American wild poinsettia gardens even though the United States coastal plains never juggle Michaux's poinsettias or Murray's poinsettias.

An irritating milk latex keeps pests, excluding flea beetles (Glyptina cyanipennis), away from containerized or soil-bound, cultivated or wild, indoor or outdoor American green poinsettia gardens.

Its underground taproot lends support to the green poinsettia's aboveground base from which multi-branched stems lengthen to mature, 7.87- to 23.62-inch (20- to 60-centimeter) vertical heights. The hairy, opposite-positioned, pointed-tipped, rounded- or tapered-based leaves manage blue-green lower and dull green upper surfaces and mature to 1.18-inch (3-centimeter) breadths and 3.15-inch (8-centimeter) lengths. Their coarse-toothed or lobed margins and lance-shaped, linear or oval blades need more inter-leaf spacing than leaf-like, pink-, red- or white-based bracts and the branch-end inflorescences.

Less striking colors and configurations occur on the bracts, described as floral leaves and as modified leaves, of green poinsettias than on Christmas and wild poinsettias.

The bell-shaped, five-lobed, green-white, pink-tinged, 0.79- to 1.38-inch- (2- to 3.5-millimeter-) long involucres (cups) protect 0.47-inch- (1.2-millimeter-) long nectar glands and creamy, yellow-brown or yellow-green flowers.

Hairless, heart-shaped or spherical, three-lobed capsules 1.18 to 1.96 inches (3 to 5 millimeters) in width qualify as Michaux's poinsettia fruits in American green poinsettia gardens. Every dry, explosive green poinsettia capsule releases three brown- to gray-colored, bumpy, oval, three-angled, tubercled seeds 0.51 to 1.18 inches (1.3 to 3 millimeters) in size. Herbaceous summer cuttings and seeds serve as propagators of green poinsettias whereas only seeds satisfy foraging bobwhite quail, greater prairie chickens, horned larks and mourning doves.

Drought-resistant green poinsettias tackle compacted barrens, dens, glades, outcrops and prairies somewhat aggressively and invasively while they turn indoor, plant-unfriendly niches into welcoming countdowns to Christmas.

The Noxious Weed Rules (02.06.22) of the Idaho Administrative Procedures Act (IDAPA) designates toothed spurge (Euphorbia dentata) as a noxious weed, as of July 1, 1993; toothed spurge (Euphorbia dentata) growing as a weed in a dry bean field: Howard F. Schwartz/Colorado State University/Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

closeup of green poinsettia, also known as toothed spurge, literal translation of scientific name Euphorbia dentata: Frank Vincentz, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Euphorbia_dentata3_ies.jpg

toothed spurge (Euphorbia dentata) growing as a weed in a dry bean field: Howard F. Schwartz/Colorado State University/Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images @ http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=5362594

For further information:

"02.06.22 - Noxious Weed Rules." Idaho Office of the Administrative Rules Coordinator > Archives > 2005 > Agriculture, Department of (02).
Available @ https://adminrules.idaho.gov/rules/2005/02/0622.pdf

Marriner, Derdriu. "American Wild Poinsettia Gardens for America's Other Poinsettia." Earth and Space News. Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/12/american-wild-poinsettia-gardens-for.html

Michaux, Andreas. 1803 (anno XI). Flora Boreali-Americana, Sistens Caracteres Plantarum Quas in America Septentrionali Collegit et Detexit. Vol. II. Parisii et Argentorati [Paris and Strasbourg, France]: Fratres Levrault.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/7568

Tenaglia, Dan. "Euphorbia dentata Michx." Missouri Plants > Flowers of Other Colors.
Available @ http://www.missouriplants.com/Others/Euphorbia_dentata_page.html