By Rafe Calder
Each Christmas season a plant with a plain bureaucratic name arrives in houses across the United States. Its other name is older, longer and Mexican.
What the plant is
Wikipedia gives the species as Euphorbia pulcherrima, first described as a new species in 1834. It is native to Mexico and Central America, from Mexico to southern Guatemala, and grows from 0.6 to 4 meters tall. The University of New Hampshire extension sheet says that in its native range it grows year-round as a woody shrub up to ten feet. Most people never see that. The shop plant is a small, grafted, indoor-sized creature.
The red parts are not petals. Wikipedia says they are bracts, which it describes as leaves, and that the true flowers are the small clusters at the center, called cyathia. The extension sheet makes the same point in one line: the parts people think of as flowers are bracts.
The old name
In Nahuatl, the plant is cuetlaxochitl. Three of our sources translate it, and they do not agree. Wikipedia gives “mortal flower that perishes and withers like all that is pure.” A resort magazine gives “flower that withers” or “leather flower.” The Mexico News Daily article gives no translation. We do not choose between them.
Three of the four sources agree on two uses. The sap was used against fevers, and the red or purple bracts were boiled for dye. Several sources say Moctezuma had plants brought to Tenochtitlán from lower, warmer country, because the plant would not grow at the capital’s altitude.
Taxco and the friars
The Christmas link, the sources say, starts in the seventeenth century. Wikipedia says Franciscan friars in Mexico included the plants in Christmas celebrations from then on. The Mexico News Daily article and the extension sheet place this near Taxco, in Guerrero, with the plant used in nativity scenes and processions. The resort magazine says it decorated altars and processions for the “Holy Manger.” The name flor de nochebuena, Christmas Eve flower, follows from it. Wikipedia carries a note on that name saying the claim lacks a verifying source. Wikipedia also notes that wild populations are badly fragmented near Taxco, because of deforestation.
Dates in order
- 1825 to 1829: Joel Poinsett’s years in Mexico, according to the extension sheet.
- 1826: the earliest year Wikipedia says he may have started sending plants home.
- 1828: Poinsett visits Taxco, according to Mexico News Daily; the extension sheet and the resort magazine give 1828 for the shipment of plants to South Carolina.
- 1829: Colonel Robert Carr introduces the plant into cultivation and trade, according to the extension sheet.
- 1833: Robert Buist of Philadelphia first sells it to the public, according to Mexico News Daily.
- 1834: formal description as a species, according to Wikipedia.
- 1836: known as the poinsettia, according to Wikipedia and Mexico News Daily.
- 1851: Poinsett dies, according to Mexico News Daily.
The man whose name stuck
Poinsett is called the first United States minister to Mexico by Wikipedia and an ambassador by the other three. The sources differ on the first shipment and on who put the plant into commerce. The extension sheet names Carr in 1829. Mexico News Daily names Buist in 1833. They may have done different things, one with cuttings and one with sales, but neither source says so, and we leave it there. The extension sheet says an Act of Congress named a National Poinsettia Day for the anniversary of his death.
The California chapter
Wikipedia credits Paul Ecke with developing a grafting technique, and says his son, Paul Ecke Jr., strengthened the plant’s link to Christmas. The Mexico News Daily article says Albert Ecke, a German emigrant, began a commercial orchard in California in 1909 and sent free plants to television studios to appear in holiday sets. The resort magazine says the family developed grafting to make the plant more compact and that the plants appeared on The Tonight Show and in Bob Hope’s specials.
The family’s market share is a place the sources disagree. Wikipedia says the Ecke operation served about half the worldwide market and 70 percent of the United States market. Mexico News Daily says over 50 percent worldwide and nearly 80 percent of United States sales. The figures may come from different years, and neither source dates them.
How many plants?
Wikipedia and Mexico News Daily both say about 70 million plants are sold in the six weeks before Christmas, though Wikipedia’s figure seems to refer to the United States and the other article’s is not clearly tied to a place. The resort magazine says United States sales reach about 35 million plants a year and Germany’s about 32 million. These cannot be reconciled from what we read, and we do not try. We have left out the dollar values all three give.
Side by side
- Nahuatl meaning: three translations, three sources.
- First shipment: 1826 possible (Wikipedia), 1828 (three sources).
- Who put it into trade: Carr, 1829; Buist, 1833.
- Ecke’s share: half and 70 percent, or over half and nearly 80 percent.
- Annual sales: about 70 million, or about 35 million in the United States.
Growers in Mexico
Mexico News Daily says growers in Mexico City’s historic villages raise poinsettias, and that the city held a poinsettia fair in the year of the article to support them. It gives no date for the article that we could read.
What kind of sources these are
Wikipedia; Mexico News Daily, an English-language news site; a University of New Hampshire extension fact sheet; and a resort company’s magazine, which is promotional. We found the extension sheet inexact in places. It says the plant is native to “Taxo del Alarcon,” a spelling of the town’s name that does not match the other sources.
What we left out
Dollar figures, care instructions, any legend about a child and a miracle that one source attributes to the custom, and a claim in the resort magazine about the plant’s popularity in another country. We name no grower and no nursery.
Roam first. Shop later.