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Advent begins November 29

The Almanac

The poinsettia

A winter plant with red leaves like a star. It grows wild in Mexico and found its way to Christmas.

A hand-colored botanical plate of a poinsettia: a stem with large red bracts around a small center, green leaves, and small drawings of the parts of the flower.
Poinsettia pulcherrima, Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, plate 3493, 1836. Public domain. Credits
When it is kept
All season
Where it fits in the year
All through the season

The poinsettia grows wild in Mexico and Central America.1,2 The Aztec people of Mexico called it cuetlaxochitl. They used its red color for dye and its milky sap for fever medicine.3,4,5 The red "petals" are really colored leaves called bracts. The true flowers are the tiny yellow clusters in the middle.6,2,1

Spanish Franciscan friars in Mexico used the plant in Christmas nativity processions. Sources say the 1500s or the 1600s.3,4,7 The Spanish name, Flor de Nochebuena, means Christmas Eve flower.5

Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States minister to Mexico, sent plants home to South Carolina in the 1820s, and the plant was named after him a few years later. Sources give 1825 or 1828 for the first plants.8,3,5 He died on December 12, 1851, and that is why December 12 is called National Poinsettia Day.8,1,3

Albert Ecke and then his son Paul Ecke Sr. began growing poinsettias for sale in California in the 1920s, and the Ecke family’s ranch in Encinitas became the world’s biggest source of plants. Paul Ecke Jr. helped make it a Christmas plant by marketing it, including giving free plants to television stations.1,2

A folk story, not history

A folk story tells of Pepita, a poor girl who had no gift for the baby Jesus on Christmas Eve. She picked weeds by the road, and they turned into red flowers at the altar. No early written source is known. The oldest one found is a book of 1951.9,7,10

Sources

  1. Poinsettia, Wikipedia
  2. Poinsettia, Clemson Home and Garden Information Center
  3. The history of the poinsettia, University of Illinois Extension
  4. What is the history of the poinsettia? Iowa State University Extension
  5. The checkered history of the poinsettia’s namesake, Bangor Daily News
  6. Poinsettia, University of Georgia Field Report
  7. History of poinsettias, Swanson’s Nursery
  8. Joel Roberts Poinsett, Wikipedia
  9. Poinsettia, Flores de Noche Buena, Plant Lore
  10. Pepita’s poinsettias, Urban Legends Online