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The Legend of the Poinsettia
What do you think you know about this popular holiday plant?
Today’s episode is all about poinsettias. Chances are that you have this common decorative plant around your home this holiday season. In the United States alone, poinsettias are the highest-selling potted plant, amassing in excess of $250 million in sales per year. This is even more astounding given that those sales occur in only 6 weeks’ time!
Perhaps you’re like me, and haven’t had it in your home because you’ve always heard it was toxic to humans and animals. Not true, by the way.
Maybe you don’t know how to pronounce it. I wasn’t sure myself until I looked it up.
It’s poin-set-ti-a, or poinsett-a – both are correct according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: Poin-set-ti-a is the standard pronunciation, while Poinsett-a is the nonstandard.
Why are poinsettias always associated with Christmas? Is it just their beautiful holiday colors? To me these plants are so enmeshed with Christmas and the season.
There’s actually an old Mexican legend around poinsettias and Christmas that I’ll share with you today. This is such an old tale, that we should really be calling this plant the Flor de Nochebuena, or Christmas Eve flower. It is commonly named the poinsettia after the man credited with introducing it to the United States in 1828.
National Poinsettia Day is December 12th, so let’s get the legend and the facts about this beautiful holiday plant.
Sources for the story: There are a lot—refer to the show notes for all the cited links. Teleflora.com, whychristmas.com, a WYFF4 article by Carla Field, and an LA Times article. I actually could not find the original or an old documented reference for the Mexican legend, so I’ll depend on my listeners to inform me for a follow up.
The one takeaway I hope you get from this story: Don’t always believe what you’ve heard and heard and heard for years…
Let’s get cracklin’, shall we?
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The poinsettia can be a small tree, shrub, or potted perennial plant made up of ornamental green and pale green, orange, red, white, yellow, or a “star shape” mixture of leaves that are between 3 to 6 inches long. There are over 100 varieties of poinsettias. The leaves that give the poinsettias their color are referred to as bracts, and there are small yellow flowers in the center of each leaf arrangement. Because of its ornamental presentation, the poinsettia is also known as Flame Leaf flower, Christmas Star, Lobster Flower, Winter Rose, and Flor de Nochebuena, or Christmas Eve flower. In Turkey, it is called Atakurk’s Flower, because it was the favorite flower of Atakurk, the founder of modern Turkey. In Spain, it is called the “Flor de Pascua” or Easter Flower.
The Aztecs believed the poinsettia symbolized purity. In modern times, though, it is known as the official birth flower for the month of December, and symbolizes celebration, joy, success, and good wishes that are reflective of the holiday season.
Poinsettias bloom during the winter months and are native to Central America and southern Mexico. The ancient Aztecs referred to them as cuetlaxochitl (Kweet lax o chi til) and used them extensively in their dyes for clothing and cosmetics. The white sap, which we know today as latex, was used medicinally for fever treatment.
That’s right, latex. That means if you are allergic to latex, it’s best to avoid handling the plant, especially when it has sustained an injury and is “bleeding” its latex sap.
Do you see where the myth of toxicity may have begun? In 1996, a study dispelled this myth by analyzing 22,793 cases of “poinsettia poisoning” reports from the American Association of Poison Control Centers. They found no deaths, 93.3% of the cases involved children, and 96.1% were not treated in a healthcare facility.
And not to worry about our furry friends, either. Poinsettias are only considered mildly toxic to dogs and cats. When ingested, vomiting, drooling, or diarrhea may occur.
So why Poinsettias for Christmas? Why are they so celebrated?
There is a very old Mexican folktale about the tradition of poinsettias and Christmas.
There are slight variations in the story – Pepita or Maria or Pablo or Pedro as the name of the characters, but the general legend goes something like this:
There once was a poor family from a very small village. Each Christmas Eve, the townspeople would walk to the local church to view their nativity scene and leave gifts for the baby Jesus in the manger.
Pepita was very upset this year as she passed many, many villagers with presents for the baby Jesus, each one more lavish than the last. She felt embarrassed and ashamed that she had nothing to give. Her cousin Pablo empathized with Pepita’s plight, and encouraged her, “Pepita, the gift of your love for Jesus will make him happy.”
At that moment, out of the darkness, a dazzling bright being appeared—an angel!
Pepita and Pablo were frightened, though the angel reassured them, suggesting that they pick the weeds alongside the road to leave as a gift for the baby Jesus. They knelt to pick the unsightly weeds and sought to question the angel’s advice, but she was no longer there.
Pepita and Pablo loaded their arms with the green weeds, and then made their way to the church. The townspeople stared at them and laughed. “Why put weeds into the manger?” they quipped.
Pepita and Pablo felt crestfallen, but decided to trust the angel and place the weeds as a gift to the baby Jesus.
Suddenly, the green weeds flowered into beautiful, vibrant red star-shaped leaves, dotted with a yellow flower at the center. The astounded villagers were silenced as the weeds bloomed and spread into the beautiful star flower that we all know as a poinsettia.
Everyone declared it a Christmas miracle, and Pepita and Pablo were proud that they had provided the most valuable gift of all—belief. From then on, poinsettias were always associated with the Christmas season, and people referred to the miracle star flower as Flor de Nochebuena, or Christmas Eve flower.
The shape of the poinsettia leaves is often considered symbolic of the Star of Bethlehem, which the Wise Men followed to find Jesus. The blood of Christ is symbolized in the red-colored leaves, while the white leaves represent purity.
It wasn’t until many, many years after this legend first appeared in Mexico that the poinsettia became even more popular in North America.
If you’ve ever traveled to Greenville, SC (highly recommended, by the way), you’ll notice there is “Poinsett fever” in the area. There’s the Westin Poinsett Hotel in downtown Greenville, the Poinsett Club just outside of downtown Greenville, the Poinsett Highway near Furman University, Poinsett Park in Travelers Rest, and the Poinsettia Christmas Parade. There are many more businesses, carvings, and monuments bearing “Poinsett” and poinsettias across the metropolitan area.
Most notably, there is a bronze statue of a life-sized Joel Roberts Poinsett on downtown Greenville’s Main Street.
Poinsett was a congressman, diplomat, U.S. Secretary of War, and scientist. Born in Charleston on March 2, 1779, Poinsett was educated in England, Scotland, and the U.S., first as a physician, then lawyer, before finding his expertise in languages. He traveled extensively, especially around Europe, networking with leaders such as Napoleon and Czar Alexander I of Russia.
In 1810, Poinsett was appointed as the trade envoy to South America, persuading nations to rebel against Spain even though President Washington advised neutrality. He returned to South Carolina in 1816 and served as state representative before being elected to and serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1821 to 1825. In 1825, Poinsett was appointed as the very first U.S. ambassador to Mexico by President James Monroe.
Poinsett was also an amateur botanist, and it was during his service in Mexico in 1828 that he encountered the plant known as Flor de Nochebuena (Christmas Eve flower). He first sent the flower to grow in his greenhouse in Greenville, SC, but soon began sending cuttings to acquaintances across the United States.
It is widely accepted that the first sale of the plant originated from a Pennsylvania associate, who was the first to call it the poinsettia.
By 1836, the plant was commonly known as the poinsettia in the U.S.
Joel Poinsett went on to become the U.S. Secretary of War in 1837. He was more widely known for his support of a national museum that eventually led to the creation of the Smithsonian Institute.
In spite of his influence, the poinsettia did not actually become popular until the 20th century.
Early in the 1900s, the Eckes, a family of German immigrants living in Los Angeles, began cultivating the poinsettia plant on a wide scale. They developed a secret grafting method that created a more beautiful “poinsettia” look that we’re used to today. As in the Mexican fable of Pepita and Pablo, the wild poinsettia looks weedy. The Ecke family created a monopoly of poinsettias in North America, selling and marketing them in Hollywood and featuring them on the silver screen. The Ecke family held this monopoly until 1992, when a university published this secret method of grafting. Although this opened up the doors for competition, the Ecke family still holds 70% of all poinsettia stock in the U.S. today.
In 2002, Congress officially declared Dec. 12 as National Poinsettia Day, which marks the day of Joel Poinsett’s passing in 1851. Coincidentally, this is also the same day as the Mexican holiday “Dia de la Virgen” or “Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe”.
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There you have it, all about the legend of the poinsettia! I’m glad that I now have the facts and am confident about the safety of bringing this beautiful ornamental plant into my home this holiday season. Now that I know it’s a perennial, I’m going to try to keep it for next Christmas (never mind that I have a black thumb).
Happy Holidays, and Merry Christmas to all from my hearth to yours.
