Poinsettia Day

Poinsettia flowers at Oakwood. 12/5/24 dwm

 The Christmas flower gets its name and its day from the same man, Joel Roberts Poinsett. 

 The first ambassador from the United States to Mexico was a botanist who sent cuttings from the plant home to South Carolina. Plant experts in America regarded it as a weed. Today it is the best-selling potted plant in the U.S. and Canada.

 A California farmer is credited for a grafting method that caused  the flower to branch. Paul Ecke, Jr is credited as the father of the Poinsettia industry.

 The flower's connection to Christmas is in a story from Mexico, the Flower of the Holy Night. 

Poinsettias are revered there because of the legend about a poor, little girl who didn't have a gift for Jesus' birthday. When an angel appeared and told her all she needed was to give a gift with love, the child gathers weeds from the side of the road. When they were placed in the baby's manger, they bloomed into red star flowers.

My flower. 5/24/22

I've written about poinsettias a couple times during 2022 when I had one in my office. The first is in a post including a couple run-ins with water where it didn't belong. The second ran May 28, 2022 post includes a photo of the plucky plant.

 

The plant was later damaged when a set of blinds fell on it, cutting it in two. Eventually it died but it lasted a long time, 18 months after the receptionist at the our front desk asked if I would take it.

 

The flower was a favorite of the Aztec king Montezuma who believed that the sap from the flower reduced fever.

 

We tend to think of poinsettias as red, but there are dozens, if not hundreds of varieties and colors to choose. Flower shops and greenhouses know how to time the red leaves with Christmas. It's difficult to get them on schedule, I inadvertently enjoyed blooms a couple times while it lived in my office.