How did a tropical plant become an unlikely symbol of the Christmas holiday? The history of the poinsettia begins with an old Mexican legend and, later, a major American business venture. Discover the legend of the poinsettia!
You say poin-set-ee-uh, I say poin-set-uh—but let’s call the whole thing off because the name of the ubiquitous holiday plant can be pronounced either way.
America’s Favorite Holiday Flower
Aside from the Christmas tree itself, no plant symbolizes Christmas quite like the poinsettia. More than 2 million of them will be sold this year, making it the largest potted flower crop grown in the United States!
There are over 100 varieties of poinsettias available in shades of red, pink, white, and yellow—solids, streaked, marbled, and multicolored. It makes it hard to pick just one!
Why Are Poinsettias the Christmas Flower?
Native to Mexico, the plant is called Flor de la Noche Buena (Flower of the Holy Night) due to its resemblance to the Star of Bethlehem.
In their native region of southern Mexico, poinsettias flower during the winter season. It’s a perennial shrub that was once considered a weed and will grow 10 to 15 feet tall in the wild. The Aztecs used the poinsettia bracts to make a reddish-purple dye for fabrics and used the sap medicinally to control fevers. The colored “flowers” are actually specialized leaves called bracts, while the true flowers are inconspicuous beads found in the center of the bracts.
According to Mexican lore, there was a young child, Pepita, who did not have a gift for the baby Jesus at a Christmas Eve service. She was very poor so all she could do was pick a bouquet of weeds to offer. The angels felt compassion for her plight. So, after Pepita set the flowers at the crèche of the nativity on Christmas Eve, the angels transformed the weeds into beautiful red flowers. This is why red and green are the colors of Christmas today.
The Namesake of the Poinsettia
Now, the reason blazing red (and now pink, white, orange, plus combinations of these colors) poinsettias are the Christmas flower in the United States is an accidental discovery by Joel Roberts Poinsett (1779–1851), an American statesman and the first U.S. ambassador to Mexico in 1828.
An amateur botanist, Poinsett saw the red flowers when visiting the Mexican town of Taxco in the state of Guerrero, shortly before he was thrown out of the country for trying to buy Texas from the Mexicans for a million dollars!
Poinsett was so impressed by the beauty of these plants that he sent cuttings back to his plantation near Georgetown, South Carolina, where they were propagated and called the “Mexican Fire Plant.” The plant was shared with botanical gardens and growers across the country.
Soon, the plants became popular across the U.S. and were renamed for Mr. Poinsett.
But the reason poinsettias became so popular is due to Paul Ecke and his inventiveness. Ecke, who lived in California, discovered a technique which caused seedlings to branch, resulting in a fuller plant. He began growing the plant in the tens of thousands for the Christmas season, when other flowers were scarce.
To promote poinsettias as a Christmas plant, he sent the crimson-leaved plants to TV studios across the country, including “The Tonight Show” and Bob Hope’s holiday specials.
The rest is history. Today, Poinsettias are not only the most popular Christmas plant, but the best-selling potted plant in the United States and Canada, contributing over $250 million to the U.S. economy at the retail level. California remains the top U.S. poinsettia-producing state.
For over 150 years, December 12 was considered National Poinsettia Day to honor the day of Poinsett’s death in 1851. In 2002, an Act of Congress made it official.
https://www.almanac.com/poinsettia-christmas-story
I start a new job this week. I’ve been unemployed for quite some time. I’ll have money to put into growing next year. Will finally be able to get that high tunnel built.
Maybe your readers would like to see the results of a rookie gardener. ;-):
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4114698/posts?page=64#64
The Christmas cactus is by far my favorite holiday plant. It can live for 100 years..literally. I’ll try to post pictures of one or 2 of mine.
This past week here in Central Missouri has been mostly gray and a bit damp, but we’ve received no appreciable amount of rainfall. The sun popped out for awhile yesterday which made for a nice day to get some chores done outside. Weather guessers are saying there’s a good chance for thunderstorms here tomorrow so maybe we will get a drop or two then.
The water is down so far that I had to use the tractor to put the little boat into the pond yesterday so I could pull the deep diffuser out for the winter. I gave it a good scrubbing and reset it shallow to maintain a bit of open water when the weather gets cold.
Spent a little time in the greenhouse yesterday reseeding the stuff that croaked while I was laid up with the covid. The salad stuff I put in the planter beds is starting to look like something. The turnips aren’t super happy but the lettuce, radishes, and spinach are doing well. Wish I’d gotten it going a couple weeks earlier than I did. I’ll know better next time.
I still need to pick up some lumber to frame the ends of my tunnel so the plastic will stay in place when the wind blows. If I can get that accomplished I’ll be able to get a serious jump start setting out my plants come spring.
I spent most of the afternoon yesterday cleaning up my workshop. I’m determined to finish up fixing on Mr. Clarence this winter so I can get him out of there and put him to work. Now that I can actually get to him that will be easier to accomplish.
In between the cleaning I hung up a few more 4’ LED light fixtures and repaired the outside porch light. It was one of those motion detector fixtures from Lowe’s. Those things are not worth the money. The motion detector bit craps out in less than a year, if it ever worked at all. I got tired of fighting with this one so I rewired it to just come on and stay on when I flip the switch.