Poinsettia – Photo by Tony Hisgett from Birmingham,

Dear Readers, there have been lots of posts on social media this year of sad-looking poinsettias gradually dying outside supermarkets across the land. I often wonder about these plants – they’re sold so cheaply, and I suspect that the overworked supermarket staff have no time to water them or keep an eye on them. Poinsettias, being particularly choosy plants, often suffer the most – over water them and their leaves drop off and they turn soft and mushy, but if you don’t water them at all the leaves also drop off and the whole plant dries up to twigs. Alas! To be honest this is not a plant that does well with benign neglect, and, as with puppies and kittens, Christmas is probably the worst time to bring a new pot plant home unless it really can take care of itself (like an Amaryllis for example). Read on for how to help your poor beleaguered poinsettia to survive from year to year, and how it became so associated with Christmas.

Dear Readers, I can scarcely believe that I haven’t done a post on poinsettia before, but here it is, in all its Christmassy glory. Who would have thought that this plant is actually a Euphorbia? In the wild, it lives in Mexico and Central America, and is named after Joel Poinsett, the first United States Minister to Mexico. Poinsettia grow to the size of a small tree if left unmolested, but most of them live their lives in a pot as a temporary house plant, being thrown in the bin at the end of the Christmas period as they lose their leaves and start to look extremely sad. It doesn’t have to be this way, though! Read on!

As you probably know, the red ‘flowers’ are actually leaves, or bracts, with the actual flowers being the little yellow and green blobs in the middle. They have been cultivated to appear in a variety of other colours, including cerise,  white and salmon. However, pretty as they are, cultivated poinsettias are diseased, according to Clare Wilson at New Scientist – to make short, bushy plants, growers infect poinsettias with a bacteria that causes them to grow lots more side shoots that terminate in those colourful bracts.

Poinsettia varieties (Photo By Andy Mabbett )

If you are lucky enough to receive a poinsettia at Christmas, the advice is not to overwater it – wait until the plant’s leaves are just starting to droop, and then put them in to a bowl of water for about an hour. The plant should also be kept at a fairly stable temperature (i.e. not next to a window where they’ll be cold overnight) – Wilson’s article mentions that the plants don’t need high light levels for the month or two that they’ll be on display, so they can be positioned well away from a window.

But are poinsettias poisonous? There was an urban legend in the 1920s that a child had died after ingesting a leaf, but this was later found to be untrue. Like all euphorbias, they can cause skin irritation, and I wouldn’t want to eat a poinsettia risotto or feed any to my dog or cat, but generally they are inoffensive plants. The Aztecs used the plant for traditional medicine, and one of the active chemicals in poinsettia is being investigated as a potential drug to treat Alzheimers disease.

Poinsettias in front of an altar in the Philippines (Photo By Ramon FVelasquez)

In Mexico, a 16th century legend tells of a poor girl who wanted to bring some flowers to the altar at Christmas, but couldn’t afford to buy any. An angel told her to pick some weeds and in the morning they had turned into poinsettias. The red colour is supposed to represent the blood of Christ, and the flower shape the Star of Bethlehem. And goodness, we have just missed National Poinsettia Day, which is on 12th December. Apparently the poinsettia is the most valuable potted plant in the world in terms of sales, with over 70 million plants sold in the US every year, to a value of about $250m.

How sad, then, that by January most of the plants are looking very sad, with their leaves dropping off and their glory much reduced. My Dad was a dab hand at bringing them back to life for the following Christmas, and though I’m pretty sure that he didn’t do anything as scientific as the advice below, it’s certainly possible.

Andrew Fuller from Bridge Farm Group in Spalding, UK, recommends that the poinsettia gets 12 to 14 hours of darkness per day for about two months once it’s lost its leaves. You can do this by putting the plant into a cupboard for that period, or sticking a bag over it. In a commercial greenhouse, the plants are actually ‘put to bed’ by pulling the curtains every night, which seems rather sweet to me. You will have to remember to do it every night, though. I have a suspicion that Dad just put the poinsettia into a room that wasn’t well lit for a few months and held off on the watering, to ‘give it a rest’.

And finally, a poem, by Jamaican poet Claude McKay (1889 – 1948). As I look out at the snow, it reminds me that for many people, December is a warm month. What a thought.

Parsnips (Pastinaca sativa)

Dear Readers, I’m not sure when roast parsnips became a part of our Christmas feast in the Bug Woman household, but it feels like a relatively recent thing. I’m pretty sure that we didn’t eat them when we lived in East London, so we would have been parsnip-less until about 1975. Then when we moved to the dizzy heights of Seven Kings (still in London but very slightly more Essex-y) parsnips started to crop up when we had roast beef, debuting at Christmas in about 1978. What about you, UK readers? Were parsnips ever a Christmas thing for you or was it just us?

At any rate, the parsnip is a member of the carrot family, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in flower. From the photos, it looks as if it could have a future as an ornamental, with very pretty umbels of yellow flowers which would no doubt attract clouds of hoverflies. As the gardeners amongst you already know, parsnip is a biennial like so many of the umbellifers, producing a rosette of leaves in year one, followed by the flowers in year two.

Parsnips in flower (Photo By Skogkatten at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56154151)

The parsnip comes originally from Eurasia, but has been in the UK since the Romans brought it (though there is some confusion between carrots and parsnips in Roman literature). Its sweetness meant it was used as a substitute for sugar before sugar beet came along, and indeed there are still lots of recipes out there for parsnip cakes. Don’t do what I did and try to make a swede (rutabaga) cake though – the one that I created had a kind of satanic sulphurous undertone that no amount of cream cheese icing could disguise.

In his column in The Guardian, Nigel Slater mentions a dish called ‘parsnips Molly Parkin’ –

“The recipe sounds somewhat unlikely, as it involves layering browned parsnips and tomatoes with brown sugar and cream, and baking it slowly till the sliced roots have softened and the cream is a rich, sweet sauce. In fact, the result is much less sweet than you would suspect. I have recently done the same with beetroot and it works a treat.”

Well, I’m not sure, I have to say. Maybe one for if you have a glut on your allotment?

This spiced orange and parsnip cake looks as if it could work, though, and it’s by no less a a personage than Nadiya Hussain, probably my favourite Great British Bake Off winner of all time.

Spiced orange and parsnip cake by Nadiya Hussain (from https://thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/parsnip-and-orange-spiced-cake/)

Here at Schloss Bug Woman though parsnips are generally roasted (no pre-boiling, they’re fine as they are). While watching Masterchef The Professionals this year I was astonished to hear Monica Galetti say that you didn’t need to cut out the core, which I have been doing religiously since 1978, as my mother taught me. Turns out that Monica is correct, and the core cooks down to softness in the same time as the rest of the vegetable, plus less waste, which can only be a good thing. You live and learn, as they say. The ones below have been roasted with honey and mustard, which sounds a tad too sweet to me, but who knows?

Roast parsnips with honey and mustard (Photo By Takeaway – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19289587)

Not everybody appreciates the ways of the parsnip, however. In France I believe that they are considered only fit for animal food, and in Italy they are fed to the pigs that are used to make parma ham. There’s a saying on the island of Guernsey (one of the Channel Islands) that ‘the little pig gets the biggest parsnip’, meaning that the youngest child is the one who is most spoilt. It also points up that it’s not just Italian pigs who get to feast on this root vegetable.

The ancient Romans considered parsnips an aphrodisiac, and the Emperor Tiberius accepted part of his tribute from Germania in ‘white carrots’.  On a more domestic note,  my Uncle Roy used to make the most migraine-inducing cloudy wine with them. Every Christmas we were given a glass of his latest brew, and I regret to say that most of it ended up in the pot that the rubber plant lived in, lest we return home in no state to eat our Christmas turkey. Strange to say, the rubber plant thrived, which just goes to show what ideal plants they are for dysfunctional households.

Rubber plant (Ficus elastica var Robusta). Photo By Mokkie – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31954353

Interestingly though, who would have thought that the  humble parsnip could be dangerous (and not just in my Uncle Roy’s wine?) Like many umbellifers (Giant Hogweed comes to mind), the wild parsnip plant contains compounds which are phototoxic – they cause blisters when skin that has been in contact with parsnip sap is exposed to the sun (photodermatitis). They can also cause these effects in poultry and other livestock, so hopefully the Parma ham pigs don’t ever get the chance to eat the leaves or stems of the plant. Nigel Slater also mentions that old, woody specimens of parsnip were thought to induce madness, and that one time it was known as ‘the mad parsnip’.

The harmful chemicals don’t, however,  deter the caterpillars of several rather lovely moths and butterflies that feed on parsnip leaves, who instead use the toxins to deter predators.  In North America we have the parsnip swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes)…

Female parsnip swallowtail (Photo By Spinus Nature Photography (Spinusnet) – Own work: Spinus Nature Photography Black swallowtail, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46117206)

and in Europe there’s the Common Swift moth (Korscheltellus lupulinus) and the Ghost Moth (Hepialus humuli), where there is a marked difference between the sexes. The male Ghost Moth performs an aerial display coupled with pheromones to attract a female.

Common Swift Moth (Photo By © entomartIn  https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=295454)

Male (left) and female (right) Ghost Moths (Photo By Ben Sale from UK – Ghost Moth pair, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46076336)

And here, to finish, is a proverb and a very short poem. First up, ‘fine words butter no parsnips’ – this dates back to about 1600, and even then it had the sense that ‘talk alone won’t improve anything’. Here’s no other than Sherlock Holmes expounding on the statement:

“I tried to reason with her, but she insists she will be at her wits’ end until she knows the truth about her husband,” Lestrade sighed.

“Fine words butter no parsnips,” Sherlock replied. “While your intentions are admirable and your speech no doubt soothing, it is no substitute for the truth she seeks. That is why it is imperative for us to find that truth, and as quickly as possible.”

And here is Ogden Nash, on the parsnip:

The Parsnip

The parsnip, children, I repeat
Is simply an anaemic beet.
Some people call the parsnip edible;
Myself, I find this claim incredible

Clearly Ogden has never had Parsnips Molly Parkin.

Parsnips Molly Parkin from https://www.riverford.co.uk/recipes/parsnips-molly-parkin

Firstly, a merry Christmas to all my readers who celebrate the day – for those who don’t, I hope that you have a peaceful break, and a happy and healthy 2024. Fingers crossed that some good things will happen in this leap year.

And for those of you who are up to your armpits in the last Christmas preparations on this Christmas Eve, I hope that you have some time to rest and relax and watch something silly on the television with a glass of something beside you, and your Christmas hat on at a peculiar angle. I shall do this in honour of my Dad, who definitely knew how to appreciate Christmas.

I wrote a piece about Christmas in the middle of the first Covid lockdown in 2020, not long after losing my Dad, and people have mentioned that it helped them to feel less alone at this often difficult time of year, so I’m linking to it here.

Dad in 2017 (post nap, pre Gin and Tonic)

As regular readers will know,  I always like to do something special for the Twelve Days of Christmas – in the past we’ve looked at the famous song, done an Almanac, had various quizzes and have generally had a bit of fun. And since someone pointed out the Twelve Days of Christmas actually start on Christmas Day, from tomorrow we’ll have twelve themed days of Christmas-related fun. See if you can guess what the theme is, and it will start from tomorrow, Christmas Day.

Field pansy (Viola arvensis) Photo By Ivar Leidus – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=127273286

Dear Readers, you might have come across a story about this little plant in the press this week, and no wonder. Field pansies can be found across Europe, western Asia and North Africa, and normally they are pollinated by long-tongued bumblebees such as Bombus terrestris, the buff-tailed bumblebee. However, these bees have suffered a 33% decline in the regions of study (around Paris, France), and so scientists wondered if, and how, the plants were adapting.

Producing nectar is very expensive for a plant – it requires a lot of resources to generate all that sugar. Furthermore, the plant then has to attract the bees, by using petal shape and colour and perfume to advertise that there is food available. Insect pollination is the most precise way for the plant to pass on its genetic material, so if there are enough pollinators, it’s worth it. However, when there aren’t enough bees around, the plant has another strategy that can be deployed.

Pansies are capable of something called ‘selfing’ – self-pollination. In this case, the plant fertilises itself, so it doesn’t need a pollinator. Plants that adapt to doing this can reduce their nectar load, and they no longer need the flashy advertising signals (one reason why plants that are wind-pollinated, such as grasses, don’t bother with such a palaver). Scientists used something called resurrection ecology to look at populations of field pansy in the same locations in the past, and compared them to the plants of today. They found that today’s pansies are 27% more likely to be self-pollinating compared with the plants of only 30 years ago, and that the plants, as expected, have lost some of the characteristics that made them attractive to bees.

This is an extraordinary example of rapid evolution to meet changing conditions, but there is a sting in the tail. The problem with self-pollination is that the offspring are all clones of the parents. This is ok while the conditions that the plant grows in remain the same, but the great advantage of cross-pollination is that you get variation in each generation. Then, when some ghastly disease or drought or rainstorms or bitter cold appear, at least some of the youngsters will survive (hopefully). If everyone is identical, everyone could be wiped out.

The web of life is complicated. In a way, it’s great that pansies are capable of self-pollination (not all plants are), but it is likely to reduce the genetic diversity in those particular populations, making them more vulnerable, as we’ve seen. This feels like an important study, and I hope that it will be replicated in other places to see what’s going on. And yet, we continue to use neonicotinoid pesticides which have a devastating effect on bees, bumblebees in particular. Humans might be the most intelligent species on the planet, but we seem, unlike the pansies, to have no survival instincts whatsoever.

Rant over.

Buff-tailed bumblebee queen (Bombus terrestris) Photo Holger Casselmann, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Cold Dark Matter – An Exploded View by Cornelia Parker (1991)

A series following the 72 British mini-seasons of Nature’s Calendar by Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender, Rowan Jaines and Rebecca Warren.

Dear Readers, as you might have noticed I’m a day late with this one. However, unusually the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, was at 3.27 a.m. this morning (not on  21st December) so I’m not too far out! From now on there will be a slow lengthening of the days in the Northern Hemisphere, and a slow shortening of the days in the Southern Hemisphere. I rather like the balance of this: one half of the planet becoming lighter, the other darker, until the summer solstice when the pattern reverses again. It feels as if whatever else is going on, the basic engine of the planet is still in place.

Light and darkness is the quintessence of shadow: the way that light passes through some things and not others can create the most extraordinary effects if you have the time to notice them. Cornelia Parker used shadow extensively in her installations, such as the exploded shed in the photo above – Parker got the army to blow up a garden shed, and then she painstakingly mapped where the individual parts had landed and put them all back together in the instants just after the dynamite went off. The shadows across the walls and floor and ceiling are an intrinsic part of the work, and it begs many questions. A moment has been frozen, but is this just after the explosion, or is the shed somehow in a process of being remade, put back together again?

There are often other questions that arise at this time of year, especially (I find) as I get older. Did I make the best use of the past twelve months? What would I do differently? Is there the right balance between being productive and being thoughtful? I am not a great fan of New Year’s Resolutions, maybe because so often I find that they centre on things that I’m planning to ‘do’ rather than  how I’m planning  to ‘be’. I have a suspicion that the ‘being’ should come first, and should gently direct the ‘doing’.

How would it be if I wanted to be ‘more creative’. Or ‘kinder’? Or ‘calmer’? Or ‘more enthusiastic’ (Lord help us)? Something to ponder on, for sure. This seems to open things up in my head, rather than close things down.

So often, resolutions around ‘doing’ imply that there is something quintessentially wrong with us (too fat, too lazy, too stupid, too….boring). But resolutions around being seem to accept that we are a particular way already, and we just want to bring out more of our best features. I am creative already, but I could take up creative mending (quite a thing at the moment!). I am kind already, but there are lots of people in my community who could do with a helping hand, or a smile, or just a word of encouragement. I am calm already, but a bit of meditation wouldn’t hurt.

What do you think, Readers? I am a bit fed-up with resolving to do ten new things (Go to the gym three times a week! Read more literature in translation! Take up crochet!) and then feeling like a schmuck when I’ve dropped the lot by February. I suppose it’s about finding what really matters to us, and doing more of it, rather than trying to reshape ourselves as a whole new human being. Maybe we’re fine just as we are, and that’s a great starting point.