This is a poinsettia? I don’t think so.

As I mentioned previously, there has been continued improvement in the quality, the realism, of artificial flowers. Production techniques have developed to manufacture faux blooms that increasingly resemble the real thing. Today the industry recognizes six levels of quality in the grading of artificial botanicals, with #1 being the poorest quality and #6 being the highest. We are going to look at specimens that exemplify the standards of each grade and you will see what to look for in appraising the quality of the stems and arrangements being offered for sale. Like any product, higher quality correlates with higher cost.

STEM

GRADE 1 POINSETTIA

Example number 1 is a poinsettia purchased from a dollar store. This sad example resembles a living plant in no discernible way. It mimics the red and green leaves that characterize the poinsettia, but the colors are pallid and not authentic, they are middling shades of a standard and, no doubt, inexpensive industrial dye. The fabric used to form the leaves is so coarsely woven that light clearly passes through. Further, the leaves are frayed and creased, their outline is not accurately cut and they lack the rigidity to look natural. The means for attaching them to the stem are crude plastic devices of poor design and manufacture. The stem itself is a piece of crudely molded plastic. The close up photo of the stem shows that excess plastic was extruded through the seam of the mold, creating what is called flash, and no finishing was done to remove this imperfection. This production flaw indicates that either the temperature of the plastic was not controlled when injected into the mold or that the mold was worn and did not seal tightly.

Now let’s examine the biological accuracy of this specimen. There are not enough leaves. The poinsettia is a lush plant, while this artificial has only two leaves on the stem  (Of course, ambient conditions will affect the vigor of a plant, but I do not think that this specimen was manufactured to illustrate that point.) Most significantly, the red “blossom” atop the stem is grouped within a calyx that sets it apart from the leaves. Certain varieties of plants have a calyx, a cup like structure of green petals, called sepals, that lie at the base of the blossom.  However, the poinsettia does not have a calyx. The red “flowers” of the poinsettia are actually leaves that develop coloration due to carefully timed exposure to light.

INAPPROPRIATE CALYX

This specimen is poorly manufactured and is not anatomically correct. These factors contribute to the placement of this artificial flower in the first, or lowest quality, grade of artificial flowers.