Poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima)

Another wet horrible day.  We got soaked going to the tip recycling centre so weren't keen to venture outdoors again.  For a few years now I have been trying to grow on our Christmas Poinsettia and get it to colour up for Christmas.   I have succeeded in keeping them going and getting good colour.   I haven't yet managed to get the masses of coloured growth seen in specimens like this.

An interesting plant.  The flowers are the tiny yellow dots in the centre.  So what supplies the colour?  The sea of red is provided by bracts (specialized leaves) which are produced and colour as the days shorten.

A native of Mexico and central America it is named after Joel Poinsett who is credited with introducing the plant to USA.  Often thought to be highly poisonous it isn't dangerous, however while it can cause some problems if ingested even those are usually mild.

I chose it to blip for two reasons, I was looking for a blip and getting a good shot of the mass of red can be quite tricky so it was good practice.