Miaoli County’s Jhuolan Township (卓蘭) has been a primary source of poinsettia for holiday decorations, but this year it added a new variety of the popular Christmas plant to the market, called “Surprise.”
Jhuolan agricultural and floral products sales and marketing association director Lin Hung-chih (林鴻志) said the name was chosen because the new variety has all the special features from other poinsettia varieties.
“The bracts [special leaves] of the Surprise variety features a wide variety of colors. Some of them are both pink and red, while others have irregular white patterns like snowflakes,” Lin said.
Photo: CNA
Lin said unlike the more traditional poinsettia varieties, such as the red “X-mas” and the light yellow “Candlelight,” the Surprise is also more festive.
Lin said the association only supplied 3,000 plants of the Surprise variety this year and would consider whether to purchase more next year depending on market reception to the blooms.
Association employees have been working day and night for the past two weeks to carefully wrap the pots of poinsettia.
Employees said they ship out an average of 20,000 pots of poinsettia per day in the run up to Christmas and their hands are sore from non-stop wrapping.
Although Jhuolan has been nicknamed “kingdom of fruits” due to the wide variety of fruit grown there, the township is also a major poinsettia plantation area in the nation. It is expected to produce 500,000 pots of poinsettia this year alone, accounting for approximately 39 percent of the total production nationwide.
“Because of the large temperature difference between night and day in Jhuolan, the flowers grown in the township are naturally more beautiful than those seen in other parts of the country,” Lin said.
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