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We all know about the holly and the ivy, but what about the Christmas bush and the Christrose?

They’re all examples of plants and flowers countries across the world associate with the festive season, bringing a traditional feel to the local culture and customs.

����ý Bitesize has hitched a ride on Santa’s sleigh to take a quick tour around the globe and seek out the flora of a very special time of year.

Australia: Christmas orchids and a woolly bush

On the other side of the globe, Christmas takes place during summer - making a barbecue on the beach a more likely occurrence on 25 December than building a snowman in the back garden.

Tyler Howard of the Australian Institute of Horticulture helped Bitesize learn more about the flowers which add a festive flourish there.

With Australia covering such a large expanse - around three million square miles (approx 7.77m sq km) compared to the UK’s near 95,000 square miles (approx 2.46m sq km) - it has different terrains and climates, including deserts, wetlands and rainforest. This makes different parts of the country better for growing certain plants than others. In New South Wales, for example, there are flowers known as Christmas Bells - red and yellow drooping blooms which look a little like pixie hats from a storybook - and the Christmas Bush with its vibrant red sepals.

In Queensland, there is the Christmas orchid with its white petals and a small, distinctive red section which looks a little like a holly berry from a distance. In Western Australia, where the city of Perth is found, the Albany woolly bush is a native plant often potted for use as a Christmas tree, although it can also be found in other parts of the country. Norfolk pines originate on the Pacific Ocean’s Norfolk Island and have been grown on parts of Australia’s coast due to their resistance to salt and wind - but in the run-up to Christmas they are a regular sight in Aussie supermarkets and garden centres as potted trees, ready to be baubled.

Tyler added: “I make Christmas wreathes for family and friends with plants from my garden, such as grevillea [known as the spider flower], muehlenbeckia [known as maidenhair vine, it is a shrub with dark green leaves], banksia [Australian wildflowers with a spikey appearance], stems from eucalyptus, woolly bush, or brush box [an evergreen tree], and seed pods.”

Germany: Stechpalme and Christrose

The Christmas tree that we know so well in the UK has its origins in Germany. Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III was known to have set up a tree in Windsor in 1800 while Prince Albert, husband to Queen Victoria, is perhaps better known for bringing the tradition to a wider audience in 1840.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the flowers and plants associated with a German Christmas echo those we see in the UK each year. For a quick yuletide language lesson, stechpalme is the German word for holly, while weihnachtsstern is the poinsettia, a plant that has been associated with Christmas in many countries in more recent years. Frank Singhof of Deutsche Gartenbaubibliothek (German Horticultural Library) told Bitesize: “[Poinsettia] doesn’t have such a long tradition in Germany, but it has been very popular since the 1950s. The bright red colour of the plant's leaves is said to represent the blood of Christ, while the shape of the leaves resembles the Star of Bethlehem.”

Frank also mentioned the Christrose, also known as the Christmas Rose, or Weihnachtsrose in German. The white flower is part of the buttercup family rather than a rose, and it inspired the German poet Eduard Morike to write Auf eine Christblume (On a Christmas Flower) after he spotted one growing in a churchyard.

South America: The poinsettia (again!)

We have heard about the poinsettia as a German tradition from Frank, but the flower’s heritage can be traced back to Mexico in the 16th Century. Missionaries arriving in the country wanted to decorate Nativity scenes but the holly they would usually rely on was not readily available.

Instead, they made use of a vibrant red and green plant that flowered in December and, over time, this colourful bloom became associated with the festive season. In the 1820s, a US diplomat called Joel Poinsett visited Mexico and, as an amateur botanist, became fascinated with the flowers.

Poinsett shipped a cutting across to his native Charleston in South Carolina. The flowers became popular and adopted a slight variation on Poinsett’s name - the poinsettia. They were also fragile, and it wasn’t until the 1920s that a variety called the St Louis Red gradually became sturdy enough to survive in a plant pot, following work by the agriculturalist Paul Ecke. It was later marketed as The Christmas Flower, and its popularity spread around the world.

This story was published in December 2023.