Poinsettia: The plant that says "Merry Christmas"

There is no other plant that says “Merry Christmas” quite like the poinsettia. The eye-popping, velvety red blooms signal the Christmas season, while a multitude of other color varieties have provided many options for utilizing these hearty plants in a variety of holiday themes.

While the poinsettia’s native grounds are said to be Central America, it has distinct history in Taxco del Alarcon in Southern Mexico. While the plant’s beauty has created one element of its popularity, the Aztecs found that it had other notable purposes.

The milky, white sap (latex) was successfully used to treat fevers from the 14th to the 16th century. From its bracts, the Aztecs were able to extract a purple-colored dye they used for textiles and in cosmetics.

The individual credited with bringing the plant to the United States was Joel Roberts Poinsett (1779-1851), who was an ambassador to Mexico in the 1820s under the administration of President John Quincy Adams.

Interested in botany, Poinsett introduced the American Elm into Mexico. One day while traveling a road in Mexico, he saw beautiful plants with large red flowers growing. He reportedly took cuttings from the shrub and brought them back to his home in the U.S. where he had a greenhouse.

In time, U.S. historian and horticulturist William Prescott was asked to give Euphorbia pulcherrima (which meant ‘very beautiful’) a new name, and he named it the poinsettia, after Poinsett.

Coastal North San Diego County (Encinitas) has played a significant role in the further cultivation of the poinsettia, thanks to Paul Ecke and family who began growing them in the early 1900s for use both in the landscape and as a cut flower.

By nature, the original poinsettia grew in an open, leggy method. The Ecke family is who is responsible for the much more attractive poinsettia varieties seen today. They accomplished that by grafting two varieties of it together to make a fuller, more compact plant. The Ecke family had a monopoly on that method until the 1990s when a researcher discovered the method and shared it with the open market.

As of 2008, the Eckes grew over 70 percent of all poinsettias purchased in the United States. At that time, it was also responsible for about 50 percent of poinsettia sales worldwide.

Stores and nurseries in the Fallbrook area have good supplies of poinsettia plants in stock right now. They are a quick and easy way to brighten up a home for the holidays!