The Legend Of The Poinsettias

The legend about the lovely red holiday plant, the poinsettia is a Christian legend from Mexico.

There, it is said, a little girl named Pepita wanted to place a gift to the Christ child at the altar of her church. Sadly, however, this poor youngster had nothing of value to offer.

Recognizing Pepita's problem, her older brother Pedro told her, "Don't be upset. It is not the value of a gift to our savior that counts. Any gift, presented with love, will mean as much to Him."

Accepting this wise counsel, Pepita set out to do her best. From the fields near her home she gathered a bouquet of weeds. She arranged the wildflowers as best she could and took them to the church. There she crept quietly down the aisle to the front of the nave and placed them carefully at the base of the creche.

Miraculously, by Christmas morning her "weeds" had turned to a brilliant red. They were, of course, poinsettias. Based on this legend, poinsettias are often referred to in Mexico as Flores de Noche Buena -- Flowers of the Holy Night.



Poinsettias do indeed grow wild in Mexico, where they can rise to a height of ten feet. In the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries the Aztecs used them for two purposes. The leaves served as a dye source and the plants' latex as a medicine to control tropical fevers. Only later in the seventeenth century did the flower take on religious significance. Then Franciscan priests began to display the bright red flower in nativity processions.

Despite its Mexican source, the plant has taken on a common name from the United States. President Andrew Jackson's ambassador to Mexico in the 1820s was Joel Roberts Poinsett. An amateur botanist who introduced the American elm to that country, Poinsett also searched widely for plants to bring back to the states. In 1828 he found a shrub with red bracts growing along a Mexican roadside. He took cuttings from the plant and returned them to his greenhouse in South Carolina. From there they were widely distributed.

Today, despite the fact that they are rarely sold other than at Christmastime, poinsettias are our top-selling shrub. Over 80 million are purchased each year.

The Aztecs had assigned one of their tongue-tying names to this plant, cuetlayochitl. A German botanist gave it its scientific name, Euphorbia pulcherrima, which carries the appropriate meaning, "very beautiful." Then finally, as the plant gained in popularity in the United States, horticulturalist William Prescott honored the ambassador who brought it here with its common name, poinsettia.