Why Poinsettias Are Popular Christmas Plants (and How They Got Their Name)

You can’t swing a light-up plastic Santa Claus in December without hitting pots of poinsettias sitting by hearths, filling indoor planters, and starring in holiday tablescapes. Poinsettias are indisputably an iconic plant of Christmas, but where did they come from? And why are they so beloved in the U.S. and around the world?

The foil-wrapped potted plant you grab at a big box store during the holidays actually connects you to centuries of tradition, lost cities, long dead people, alternate worldviews, and horticultural ingenuity. The tale of how poinsettias went from their origins as a plant prized by the ancient Aztecs to a global Christmas tradition is steeped in legend and intrigue.

Poinsettia Popularity

Poinsettias are so popular they account for nearly 20% of the potted flowering plants sold in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Each year more than 70 million poinsettias are sold nationwide, says the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, contributing $250 million to the nation’s economy. That’s an amazing amount considering the market for poinsettias is only about six weeks long.

What explains poinsettias’ appeal? Their blooms are seasonally appropriate red, and the rest of the leaves are green, so they add instant yuletide color to a space. They’re also a tropical plant that brings a welcome lush, colorful look to winter interiors when the outdoors have turned into monotonous gray, white, and brown.

Where Poinsettias Originated

Poinsettias may seem like the ultimate flashy 20th century flower but their history begins centuries ago with indigenous people. Poinsettias are native to Guatemala and areas of Southwestern Mexico, where they are tropical shrubs. In their natural habitats, wild poinsettias grow to be 10- to 15-foot trees. The tree blooms in December, when cooler, longer nights cause the bracts (green leaves) to turn red. These colorful bracts surround the poinsettia’s true blooms, small yellow flowers that appear to be the red bloom’s center.

The plant was cultivated by the Aztecs centuries before the European colonization of the Americas. The Aztecs called the plant “cuetlaxochitl” (kwet-la-sho-she) and used it to make dyes and medicines. Cuetlaxochitl blooms were also used as offerings in religious ceremonies. It’s said that Montezuma, the last emperor of the Mexica, had caravans of cuetlaxochitl brought into his palaces in Tenochtitlan to decorate each winter.

How Poinsettias Became a Christmas Flower

When conquistador Hernan Cortes showed up in the early 16th Century, the story of these red flowers gets more complex. Spanish Catholic missionaries who arrived to convert the indigenous people saw wild cuetlaxochitl blooming around the time of their European holiday, Christmas. Friars began using the blooms to decorate Nativity scenes in southwestern Mexican cities.

By the 17th Century, Spanish missionaries and indigenous converts of Mexico had begun calling the cuetlaxochitl la flor de Nochebuena, which means “the Flower of the Holy Night,” a reference to its perceived resemblance to the Star of Bethlehem. Displaying poinsettia plants became a widespread practice throughout Mexico.

The Legend of the Poinsettia

According to Mexican lore about how poinsettias became a Christmas flower, a child named Pepita was too poor to bring a gift to decorate the church for Baby Jesus on Christmas Eve. In desperation she grabbed a handful of green weeds on her way to the church. She placed the weeds on the manger and prayed. When she opened her eyes, there was a flaming red star topping every weed stem. Outside, after the mass, all the weeds in town were topped with red stars. Those weeds were poinsettias. The stars were their red flowers.

Arrival in the United States

In 1828, the first U.S. minister to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett was enchanted by the plants he saw blooming in the Mexican winter. A botanist as well as a diplomat, Poinsett sent cuttings of cuetlaxochitl from Mexico to his home in South Carolina to grow in his greenhouses. He began sharing the plant with his friends, as plant nerds do, and renamed it "Mexican Fire Plant" to help market it in the U.S.

A Pennsylvania nursery owner, Robert Buist, began selling the plant to the public under its botanical name, Euphorbia pulcherrima. Buist introduced the flower to Europe, too, where the Vatican began using it as a Christmas decoration. Catholic churches around the globe followed suit. By 1836, cuetlaxochitl had become widely known as the poinsettia, in honor of the American guy who first imported it from its native lands. The ancient Aztec plant had become anglicized.

Poinsettias Go Mainstream

The poinsettia remained a little-known plant in the United States, only grown by plant geeks and rich people with greenhouses, until the early 20^th Century. Then a German immigrant, Albert Ecke, began growing poinsettias commercially in southern California in 1909. Ecke wisely saw an opening for selling flowers that bloomed in the winter.

Initially Ecke sold poinsettias as cut flowers, but he shifted to selling them as potted plants to make them easier to ship and so they would last longer. Ecke bred a plant that was fuller and shorter and began growing and selling them by the thousands at Christmas when other flowers were scarce. By 1919, the Ecke family held around 100 plant patents for poinsettia modifications Albert Ecke has bred. Today, the company Ecke started is still a major poinsettia producer, claiming about half of the worldwide market share.

Poinsettias Today

Questions have been raised about what to call poinsettias. Besides the common confusion of how to pronounce poinsettia (or maybe you've heard it as "poinsett-ah"), their namesake Poinsett has a bit of an unsavory legacy. He was a slave owner, played a large role in the forced Indian removal that became known as the Trail of Tears, and meddled so much in Mexican politics during his time as U.S. minister that he was forced to leave the country.

These facts have led some to reject the name poinsettia in favor of the plant’s Native name, cuetlaxochitl, or the Flower of the Holy Night if the native Nahuatl pronunciation eludes you. Whatever you call these lovely holiday flowers, now you can appreciate their multicultural history and the layers of meaning they carry. Think about Montezuma, Pepita, the indigenous peoples who relied on these flowers for medicine, and the German immigrant who turned a wild shrub into a beloved holiday tradition.