Vintage Gold Poinsettia
Sugar flowers are a passion of mine. This time of year though, I don't get many requests for them. Summers are spent making lots and lots of rose, orchids, peonies & more. And once the fall dahlias & mums are done I usually end up putting away my gum paste tools for a while.
One of the things I love about making sugar flowers is that it forces you to see the flower in a new way. Find little details that you may not have noticed before. The poinsettia might be the kind of flower you walk past, a "super market" flower. But if you look closer, and appreciate the details, you see their unique beauty.
Part of my sugar flower research involves learning more about flowers than you might want to know! So here are a few poinsettia fun facts:
- The botanical name "euphorbia pulcherrima" means "very beautiful"
- Poinsettias are native to southern Mexico and Guatemala, where they are a perennial shrub that can grow as large as 10 feet tall.
- Montezuma, the last of the Aztec kinds, would have poinsettias brought into what is now Mexico City by caravans because they could not be grown in higher altitudes.
- Most people think the showy colored leaves of the poinsettia are the flowers, but are actually colored bracts. The flowers or cyathia of the poinsettia are in the center of the colorful bracts.
- Poinsettias are the best selling potted plant in the United States.
So there you have it, my little tribute to the "super market" flower :)
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