Abstract Thursday - Poinsettia

The plant we know today as Poinsettia was originally a native of Mexico. It was said that its milky white sap, called latex, could be used to reduce fever symptoms. The plant was highly prized in Aztec culture - Cuetlaxochitl, as the plant was known, was also used to create red and purple dyes for clothing and textiles.

It wasn’t until the 17th century that Cuetlaxochitl began its journey into Christmas tradition. In the small Mexican town of Taxco de Alarcon, Franciscan monks started using the shrub in their Nativity processions. It is also around this time that the Mexican legend of Pepita and the “Flowers of the Holy Night” began. A young girl named Pepita was walking to her village to visit the Nativity scene at the church. She had no money to buy a present to give the baby Jesus at the service, so she gathered a bundle of roadside weeds and formed a bouquet. Pepita was upset that she didn’t have more to offer, but was reminded by her cousin that even the most humble gift, given in love, would be acceptable in His eyes. Upon presenting her bouquet to the Nativity Jesus, the weeds miraculously turned into beautiful red Cuetlaxochitl flowers.

However, the plant remained in relative obscurity for almost two hundred more years before a man called Joel Roberts Poinsett introduced it to the United States. He was the first U.S. Ambassador to Mexico and was also a skilled and passionate botanist who co-founded the Smithsonian Institute. On a diplomatic trip to Mexico in the winter of 1828, Poinsett was enchanted by the brilliant red leaves of this unfamiliar plant and began taking the blooms back to his home in America. There, he studied and carefully cultivated the plants. It wasn’t long before he began sharing the plants among his friends and colleagues at Christmas time, when the upper leaves of the shrub would turn red. Soon a Pennsylvania nurseryman called Robert Buist began to grow it commercially and sell the plant to the public under its botanical name of Euphorbia Pulcherrima. He played a large role in helping to establish it as a Christmas favourite. In around 1836 the plant formally attained its popular name of “Poinsettia” after the man who first brought the plant to the United States.

With many thanks to Ingeborg for hosting Abstract Thursday.