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bracts with the Christinas season.
This exotic flowering plant, used to decorate homes and churches in Mexico during the Christmas season, was introduced to the United States in 1828 by Dr. Joel Robert Poinsett, at that time the U.S. ambassador to Mexico. Upon returning from his term of service in Mexico, he brought the plants home to his native South Carolina. Poinsett propogated these plants, which he called “Painted Leaves,” in his own greenhouses, and sent cuttings to botanists throughout the country. The plant was later named “Poinsettia” in his honor. Poinsettias grow wild in Mexico and other areas of Central America, where they are shrubs that can reach 30 feet in height. Their brilliant flowers are most profuse in midDecember.
The Spanish name for poinsettias, Flor de la Noche-buena (flower of the holy night), derives from a Mexican legend which holds that the plant originated in a miracle.
As the legend has it, a poor peasant child, ashamed at having nothing to take to a service honoring the nativity of the Christ child, sadly picked a few weeds along the road to give as an offering at the church.
As he knelt at the altar with his humble gift, the child's earnest prayer and tears of reverence transformed the weeds into the flowering plant that has become as much a part of Christmas in this country as the evergreen tree.
Today, poinsettias are still imported from Mexico, though commercial growers in Hawaii and other warm-weather states
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