Why are poinsettias a Christmas classic?

As Christmas approaches, you will see pots of poinsettias in flower shops and supermarkets. Knowing that they originate from Mexico and are delicate in the cold, why are they sold at this time of year?

Flower used in winter

This flower without petals and with red leaves is endemic to southern Mexico, around Taxco, and Guatemala, being known by the Mexica as cuetlaxóchitl ("flower that withers"). As we can learn from Bernardino de Sahagún's Florentine Codex and the Codex De la Cruz-Badiano, they cultivated it as a symbol of purity, using it to obtain an antipyretic latex and a reddish purple dye through its bracts, but also noted that it caused a disease in the clitoris if it was rubbed or smelled. The botanist Francisco Hernández de Toledo indicated that the Indians adorned their patios with them. Like the Mexica themselves, the Franciscan monks used these flowers in the 17th century in winter religious festivals, specifically, in the feast of the Santo Pesebre (Holy Manger) since, according to legend, the Mexicans saw it as a symbol of the star of Bethlehem.

Description

Thanks to the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Spain by Sessé & Mociño, we have the first illustration of the plant, then named Euphorbia fastuosa. However, as the first edition of Plantae Novae Hispaniae (1893), where it was included, took more than a century to be published, we owe its name to the German botanist Karl Willdenow, who named it Euphorbia pulcherima in 1834. By then it had been about 4-5 years since the seeds had arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from Mexico, where the Scottish horticulturist Robert Buist sent cuttings to James NcNabb in Edinburgh. Two years later, Robert Graham tried to change the name to Poinsettia pulcherrima, but the generic name was not accepted.

The legends surrounding Joel Roberts Poinsett

The origin of the discarded name is another legend that attempts to explain the plant's journey from Mexico to Philadelphia. Joel Roberts Poinsett, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, reportedly saw the flower as part of a Bethlehem portal in Taxco in 1825. In 1828, he reportedly sent cuttings to Charleston, South Carolina, where they were sent to horticulturist and Colonel Robert Carr in Philadelphia, who introduced them to the Bartram collection. In June 1829 they would have been exhibited at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society's flower show.

Despite this, James Fred Rippy, author of Joel R. Poinsett, versatile American (1935), noted in a footnote that he had been unable to locate evidence to confirm the account. Only in a Charleston yearbook of Charles Stille, who as a 12-year-old visited with Poinsett one day with the Rev. John Bachman, is it said that he was interested in science and they had named a flower after him, without being clear whether he had discovered or introduced it into the country.

Although in the United States it was originally called "Mexican flame flower" or "painted leaf," these names did not catch on. Again, there is another legend that cites William Hickling Prescott, author of The History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) as responsible for the name Poinsettia, but, as noted with Robert Graham's attempt to change the generic name, this is not true.

What is true is that Poinsett corresponded with horticulturists to exchange seeds and cuttings from Mexico and the United States to strengthen U.S.-Mexico ties. It is likely that the poinsettia came to Philadelphia through the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, where Poinsett was a member from 1827. From then until 1829, Poinsett was in Mexico, so it coincides with the years in which the plant arrived in the United States.

In Europe, the plant arrived in the mid-19th century, growing in air-conditioned greenhouses. During the 20th century, as many as 100 different varieties emerged, with some being better able to withstand the cold.

Sources

• Taylor, J. M., Lopez, R. G., Currey, C. J., & Janick, J. (2011). The poinsettia: History and transformation. Chronica Horticulturae, 51(3), 23-28.
• Lack, H. W. (2011). The discovery, naming and typification of Euphorbia pulcherrima (Euphorbiaceae). Willdenowia, 41(2), 301-309.
• Benson, D. M., Hall, J. L., Moorman, G. W., Daughtrey, M. L., Chase, A. R., & Lamour, K. H. (2002). The history and diseases of poinsettia, the Christmas flower. Plant Health Progress, 3(1), 18.
• Sousa, L. (2021). Flowers and speech in discourses on deviance in book 10. In The Florentine Codex (pp. 184-199). University of Texas Press.
• Wallert, A. (1995). On some natural organic yellow colorants in Aztec codices: the Florentine Codex. MRS Online Proceedings Library, 352(1), 653-662.