The disadvantage of winter in Canada is the temperature. Not that Feliks Twist was personally troubled by the cold: it would have to get very much icier than southern Ontario before the anti-freeze in his vampire blood was unable to cope. No his problem was floral.

Or, more accurately, bracteal. Poinsettias cannot bear so much as a touch of frost. Still, by now he had more than a century's experience in the potting shed. Out of the light-controlled room, he wheeled the plant he had cherished for years, now coaxed into cladding itself in brilliant scarlet

A veritable poinsettia *tree*.