Holiday plants share complicated heritage
- Herb Broda: Nature Notebook
- December 21, 2019
- 1188
Is nature inside your house this holiday season? Since ancient times people have been eager to bring plants indoors during winter. We miss the green landscape and embrace plants that bring promise of a new growing season.
Popular indoor nature choices like holly, mistletoe and pine all share a complicated heritage that mixes religion, culture and folklore. Mistletoe is a part of Greek and Norse traditions while holly goes back to the times of the Druids and Romans. Christians adopted holly to symbolize events in the life of Christ.
According to history.com, Romans decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs, as did the Druids and Celts of Northern Europe. Even the burly Vikings liked evergreens and saw them as special plants for their sun god.
Bringing greenery into the house is rooted in ancient celebrations of the winter solstice, which in 2019 occurs on Saturday, Dec. 21. Many ancient people believed the sun was a god who grew increasingly weak until the winter solstice; then the sun became gradually stronger. The greenery was viewed as a tangible reminder that warmer weather and growing seasons were on the way.
It’s Germany, however, that grew the Christmas tree tradition we know today. Martin Luther, in the 16th century, is credited with adding lighted candles to the tree after being awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling among the evergreens.
Christmas trees were common in Europe for many years but were not seen much in America until the mid-1800s. Although Christmas today is a very festive time, it was not jolly in early America. The New England Puritans viewed Christmas as sacred and something to be observed very solemnly. In the 1600s Oliver Cromwell “preached against the ‘heathen traditions’ of Christmas carols, decorated trees and any joyful expression.” People were actually fined in Massachusetts for hanging Christmas decorations.
This stern and solemn approach to Christmas faded as Irish and German immigrants came in larger numbers to the U.S. One of those was August Imgard, a tailor from Bavaria who came to Wooster in 1847. Supposedly he was homesick for the Christmas trees in Germany, so he cut down a tree and decorated Wooster’s first Christmas tree. Imgard’s gift to the city is honored each year with a lighted tree placed near his tomb at the Wooster cemetery. Look for it as you approach the stop lights at the foot of Madison Hill.
Poinsettia fact and lore
The queen of holiday greenery is the Poinsettia. More Poinsettias are sold than any other holiday plant. What we call the flower is actually colored bracts or modified leaves. The true flowers are in tiny clusters at the center of the showy bracts.
We capitalize the word Poinsettia because it is named after a person: Dr. Joel Roberts Poinsett. This first ambassador to Mexico saw and admired these beautiful plants and brought them to the U.S. In 1828. Poinsett, a botanist as well as a statesman, also played a key role in determining that the Smithsonian Institution in Washington would become a national museum.
Poinsettias also share an intersection of religious, cultural and historical connections. The plant is a perennial shrub in Mexico growing 10-15 feet tall. The Aztecs used the Poinsettia to make fabric dye, cosmetics and a fever cure.
A charming Mexican legend links the Poinsettia with Christmas. As the story goes, a young child could only find a handful of common weeds by the roadside to bring to a Christmas Eve service. Embarrassed she did not have a greater gift, she tenderly laid the little bouquet at the nativity scene. Immediately her humble offering was transformed into a cluster of beautiful red blooms. Others in the chapel were convinced they had seen a Christmas miracle and called the transformed blossoms “Flowers of the Holy Night.”
What happens to Poinsettias after the holidays? Some will be hastily chucked into the waste stream. Others will quietly die, forgotten in spare rooms and garages. But there are a few that will be lovingly encouraged to rebloom next year.
Keeping the plant alive is easy: Just treat it like another house plant. It’s tricky, though, to get it to bloom again next Christmas. The plant’s bloom cycle is extremely light sensitive and requires precise amounts of light and darkness each day. I love the plant, but I leave the growing to the pros.
Best wishes for a healthy and peaceful New Year.
Email Herb Broda at 4nature.notebook@gmail. com.