Bermuda is experiencing an Island-wide shortage of poinsettia plants after thousands of those shipped to the Island reportedly had to be destroyed because of bugs.

Some nurseries have sold clean out of the popular red Christmas plants, and two retailers have had thieves steal dozens of the plants, which sell for between $25 and $70 and are imported mainly from the USA.

Roland Hill, owner of J & J Produce, South Shore Road, Warwick, said there was an Island-wide 60 percent shortage of poinsettias, which are mainly imported from the United States and Canada.

?Some of those imported didn?t meet the health inspection done by the ministry as they had a bug on them called sweet potato whitefly which came in on the shipments. This did not just affect one or two shipments but nine or ten of them, and they had to be destroyed,? he explained.

Mr. Hill said that while his nursery had thankfully received its full order of 1,000 plants, and still has supplies in stock, it is experiencing problems with them being stolen.

?That started about two weeks ago from my farm in Warwick and 65 to 70 plants have been taken so far. We?ve had the same problem in previous years. Poinsettias are the most popular thing we sell at this time of year,? said Mr. Hill, who has not reported the problem to the Police. Joel Cassidy, of Bermuda Plant Nursery, Pitts Bay Road, Pembroke, has sold right out of red poinsettia plants, although he still has some of the marbled and pink varieties left.

?There?s a big shortage of them this year. One fellow didn?t get any at all and some of those that came in had to be destroyed by the Department of Agriculture, which didn?t help matters,? said Mr. Cassidy, the nursery owner and manager.

?We got our full shipment in and didn?t have any problems but from what I hear, one of the other shipments of 5000 came in and that had to be destroyed, and then another 5000 too.

Speaking yesterday, Mr Cassidy said that his nursery received two shipments totalling 1,200 healthy plants during August and September, which were doubled up in pots, giving 600 poinsettias for sale.

?We sold out of all the reds in the first couple of days as we get a lot of orders from companies and churches and we also had all the customers from the other places which could not get their orders,? he said.

?We had three of the red plants stolen this afternoon from the greenhouse and 24 pink ones were taken at the weekend which have probably ended up in someone?s church.? He too has not reported the thefts to the Police. Eddie Simas, manager of Brighton Nurseries, Brighton Lane, Devonshire, said that the shipment which was supposed to have arrived from his supplier in the second week of August was two weeks later than expected.

He said that his nursery had taken the leaves off of the plants when they arrived as an anti-whitefly precaution and because the plants had arrived late they didn?t have enough time to be grown on fully, resulting in a poorer and smaller crop this Christmas.

However, his nursery still has some plants in stock.