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This is not your grandmother’s poinsettia.

Gone are the spindly stems with three clusters of color. Today’s new generation of poinsettias are huge, bold, breathtaking and so much easier to care for.

Take the Winter Rose poinsettia, for instance: It comes in white, pink and, yes, red, but have you ever seen anything like those “flowers”? (You’ll have to get out the magnifying glass to see the real flowers. See them there waaaay in the middle? Yep, those small yellow centers are actually the flowers.)

The bracts — what we call the flower — on the Winter Rose resemble a perfectly opened rose. The creases down the center of the petals look as if some elf took a serger to them: They’re all puckery.

You can understand why Joel Poinsett, an ambassador to Mexico and the guy who transported the plant from south of the border in 1825, would definitely bust his buttons over these descendants.

In Poinsett’s day only the wealthy could afford them. Now everybody can, and over the years buying a poinsettia has become more of an obligation than a cheerful tradition.

“You get very numb to the look of them, I think,” says Portland flight attendant Sheryl Plath. “This is a must have for the season,” she says of the Winter Rose.

And the new varieties come in so many colors. Doug Hart, general manager of Harts Nursery, Oregon’s largest greenhouse grower, says it’s taken a half century to breed them beyond red.

“People want colors that match their couch,” he says.

So the “flowers” are now marbled, two-toned, salmon, pink, plum, white, peppermint, peach, velvet red and speckled. This season Harts Nursery in Jefferson is growing 12,000 poinsettias of all persuasions, mostly for fund-raisers.

Poinsettias last all year if you care for them properly. And since this is the best-selling potted plant in the United States, now is a good time for a refresher course. Try placing the plant in the brightest part of a room, but don’t let the leaves touch windowpanes.

If the leaves start dropping off, it’s one of two things: You’re not watering it right, or the plant caught a draft. Poinsettias don’t like air, hot or cold, blowing on them. Placing them too close to a forced air vent or the breeze from an outside door will do them in quickly.

Here are some tips on watering. Try not to let the darn thing dry out. Touch the soil to see if it’s moist. If not, it’s time to take the plant for a walk to the sink. Remove that plastic foil shrink-wrap around the pot before setting the plant in the basin. Run some lukewarm water slowly through the pot until the water runs out the bottom. Place the pot back in the sleeve, and that’s it.

There you go: just a couple of tricks to make the leaves, flowers and bracts ho-ho-hold until well after the holidays!

Proper poinsettia pointers

• You can say “poin-SET-ah” or “poin-set-TEA-ah”)
• The plant is not poisonous to humans or animals.
• For cut flowers, run a flame over the cut end to seal it, and then place in vase of lukewarm water.
• If you want the plant to re-bloom, give it complete darkness (14 hours per day) from October to Thanksgiving.
• Keep soil moist but not soggy.
• Keep out of drafts.