Mexico’s Christmas gift to the Christian world

Undoubtedly, the most popular Christmas flower is the poinsettia. This is an indigenous Mexican flower that during the times of the Aztecs was known as cuetlaxochitl, the flower of purity. When Mexico was Christianized, people became aware that the flower bloomed only in December and it became the standard flower used to decorate Nativity scenes. Later, several legends accounted for the origin of the flower. One legend said that a girl who was separated from her lover died of grief on Christmas Eve. Her blood that fell to the soil turned into the first poinsettia flowers.

Another legend tells of a small boy whose only desire was to visit the manger in his village chapel. He felt very sad over the fact that he had no present to give to the newborn Holy Infant. So he picked up leaves from a bush as his present and miraculously the leaves turned to a star-shaped red flower which were later named Flor de la Noche Buena. In the Philippines, it was known as pascua, but today it is better known by its English name poinsettia.

How poinsettia replaced the name pascua worldwide is a story in itself. The very first American ambassador to Mexico was Dr. Joel Pointsett, an amateur botanist. He liked the Flor de la Noche Buena so much that he cultivated them in his green houses in South Carolina. Later, the owner of a Philadelphia plant nursery gave it the scientific name of Euphorbid poinsettia or Poinsettia Pulcherrima after the American doctor and it is by that name that it is now known worldwide. A German botanist named Wilenow had a poinsettia that grew through a crack in his greenhouse and dazzled by its red color bracts gave it the botanical name Euphorbia pulcherrima meaning "very beautiful." So much for its scientific name.

Fr. Manuel Blanco noted for his intensive study of Philippine plants made no mention of the poinsettia in his magnum opus published in 1837. But, it was illustrated in the luxury edition published 33 years later. That edition had a fourth volume addendum by another Augustinian botanist, Fr. Antonio Llanos. This gives ground to the belief that the pascua was introduced to the Philippines sometime between 1837 and 1878. The pascua was the Philippine Christmas plant until the Americans introduced the X’mas tree. A X’mas tree is an evergreen set up with Christmas decorations. It is the decorations and not the tree itself that makes it a Christmas tree. In the case of the poinsettia, it is its own flowers that bloom during December that make it a Christmas plant. In cold countries, the poinsettia must be kept indoors. In tropical countries, they grow up to four feet and are taken indoors only during Christmas.

It is not generally known that in the United States, there is a National Poinsettia Day. By an Act of Congress, December 12 was set aside as National Poinsettia Day to commemorate the death of Joel Roberts Poinsettia who died in 1851.