The spurge family is made up of about 2,000 species of flowering plants which produce a milk-like liquid which exudes from the plant whenever it is damaged.

About 20 species are found in the Maltese islands although not all are indigen-ous. The best known species is the poinsettia.

In Maltese it is known as ponsjetta although many refer to it as the Christmas flower.

The poinsettia is native to Central America and was named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first US minister to Mexico who was also an amateur botanist. Poinsett found the plant during one of his visits to Mexico and sent samples to his country.

In the Maltese islands poinsettias can be found growing as small trees in the countryside especially in fields close to farmhouses.

The eye-catching, large, red petals are actually a bract of leaves with small flowers in the middle. To turn red the leaves require at least 12 hours of darkness for at least five days in a row hence the “flowering” during the Christmas period.

The poinsettia was named after Joel Roberts Poinsett who came across the plant in Mexico

The cultivation of poinsettias has turned into a large industry. Large-scale cultivation started about a 100 years ago in the US and has now spread to many other parts of the world including Europe.

Many wrongly believe that the poinsettia is very poisonous. Such a belief is understandable because the latex of other spurges can be toxic. The toxicity ranges from slightly irritating to fatal.

Six to eight seeds of the castor oil tree (riġnu), another member of the spurge family, are enough to kill an adult. The poison found in the seeds, ricin, in 1978 was used by the Bulgarian secret police in London to kill Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov.

The caterpillars of spurge hawkmoths which feed on the leaves of spurges are brightly coloured because their body assimilates the poisons from the leaves they feed on which provides them with protection from predators.

portelli.paul@gmail.com