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A Poinsettia By Any Other Name
By Bridget Retzloff
Known best by deep red leaves surrounding a bright yellow center, poinsettias are available in many different colors and known by quite a few names. This iconic Mexican plant is at the center of Christmas stories and traditions. They appear throughout the Marian Library’s collections and are featured in this year’s Christmas exhibit, Nativities and the Natural World.
Euphorbia pulcherrima
Poinsettias are a shrub rather than a flower, with the scientific name Euphorbia pulcherrima. Groups of brightly colored leaves called bracts mimic petals of a flower and surround the small yellow blooms at the center. The shrub is a popular plant at Christmastime in North America, gracing desks, dining tables, store displays, altars and Nativity scenes. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, poinsettias are America’s No. 1 potted plant, with nearly 80 million sold for more than $250 million annually, even though the market is only 6 weeks long each year.
Cuetlaxochitl
Known as cuetlaxochitl to the Aztecs in present-day southern Mexico, the plant was used to make dyes and medicines.
Flor de nochebuena
Multiple legends connect the plant to Christmas, including one about a girl who brought a humble bouquet of weeds to honor Jesus, and they were transformed by angels into red flowers. A 16th-century legend involves a miracle witnessed by Franciscan friars in the area of Taxco, Mexico, in which a plain flower was transformed into the flor de nochebuena, Spanish for “flower of the blessed night.” Nochebuena is also known as Christmas Eve.
Poinsettia
The name poinsettia comes from Joel Roberts Poinsett, a U.S. ambassador to Mexico appointed by John Quincy Adams in 1825. His political career is characterized by mistreatment of Indigenous peoples and intruding in the Mexican government. He was eventually forced out of Mexico, but not before he shipped specimens of what he called “Mexican fire plant” to his home in South Carolina. Poinsett, also a botanist, propagated the plants and shared them with growers in North America, and it gained major popularity.
Further promotional and scientific developments have helped this Mexican shrub to become a major symbol of Christmas in North America.
Visit Nativities and the Natural World to make your own poinsettia ornament or print and color your own at home. Find poinsettias in our collections and appreciate a new understanding of the history of this Christmas plant wherever you may find it.
![Two pages from a children’s picture book. On the left, a girl in a purple shawl kneels, surrounded by red flowers. On the right, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, two sheep, a donkey and an ox stand inside a stable. They are also surrounded by red flowers.]](_resources/2023-12-18-a-poinsettia-folder/poinsettia-carousel-1-600x500.png)
Children’s author and illustrator Tomie dePaola shares the tale of the young girl Lucida gifting the plant to the infant Jesus in "The Legend of the Poinsettia."
Children’s author and illustrator Tomie dePaola shares the tale of the young girl Lucida gifting the plant to the infant Jesus in "The Legend of the Poinsettia."
Three Magi worship the infant Jesus with poinsettias in the foreground and the star of Bethlehem in the sky—all painted on a feather by Puerto Rican artist Sandra Berrios.
Three Magi worship the infant Jesus with poinsettias in the foreground and the star of Bethlehem in the sky—all painted on a feather by Puerto Rican artist Sandra Berrios.
Mexican artist José Tomás Esparza León uses pre-Columbian techniques and natural dyes to create this Nativity set, “Wonders of Life.” Poinsettias and other natural elements are painted onto the human figures’ clothing.
Mexican artist José Tomás Esparza León uses pre-Columbian techniques and natural dyes to create this Nativity set, “Wonders of Life.” Poinsettias and other natural elements are painted onto the human figures’ clothing.
From the Elisabeth van Mullekom Collection, this 1926 Christmas card features poinsettias in a snowy landscape.