Word: poinsettias
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...truck. One stop was Grafton, W.Va., pointed out on your map as the "Birthplace of Mother's Day in 1908." I thought I would find a vase of red carnations on the altar of the Methodist Church where the day was first celebrated. Instead, there was a tired poinsettia left over from Christmas...
...agent of disaster is a 3-mm (one-tenth-in.) insect known to scientists as the poinsettia strain of the sweet-potato whitefly but to farmers as the Superbug. Millions of these voracious insects have spread over the Imperial Valley, massing on the undersides of leaves and sucking plants dry, weakening or killing them in the process. Farmers first noticed the flies getting worse in July, and by September swarms of them looked like white clouds. They covered windshields and got stuck between people's teeth. Farm workers had trouble inhaling and eventually had to wear masks. Not since...
California farmers have been fighting other types of sweet-potato whiteflies for years. But the poinsettia strain, so named because it first appeared in the U.S. on poinsettia plants in Florida greenhouses, reproduces twice as fast as its relatives and consumes five times as much food from its victims. It comes originally from somewhere halfway around the world, possibly Iraq or Pakistan, and apparently reached America in 1986, probably hidden away in a cargo shipment...