“Christmas Plants: Marketing, Myth, Parasites, and Cacti”

“Christmas Plants: Marketing, Myth, Parasites, and Cacti”

A lecture by biologist Alexey Sivukhin

We invite you on a journey into the world of Christmas plants.

Christmas and New Year are warm, family-centered winter holidays — a time when we especially crave coziness and beauty. Beyond the traditional Christmas tree and its close relatives, the list of Christmas plants is far more extensive, especially if we look at how Christmas is celebrated in different countries.

But why did certain plants become associated with Christmas?
Each species has its own story. Some are “victims” of successful marketing, others are linked to ancient myths rooted in prehistoric times, and some simply happened to grow in places where people noticed and embraced them.