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purple dye out of the bracts and a medicine for f£ver from the plant’s latex.
Missionaries Decorated
With Native Plants
During the 17th century, a community of Franciscan priests found this bright-red flower blooming riatiirally on Mexican slopes during the season of Advent in December. They used the “flowers” (more correctly, the brightly colored bracts surrounding small yellow flowers) to adorn their Nativity celebration. This custom soon became a tradition through out Mexico.
Many stories from Mexico tell iof the poinsettia’s enchantment. In one tale, on a Christmas eve long ago, Pepita, a little Mexican girl, was sad. She wanted to give a fine present the Christ Child at the church service, but she was very poor and had no gift, given in love, would be acceptable. So Pepita gathered a bouquet of common weeds from the roadside apd entered the church.
As Pepita approached the altar, her spirits lifted, and she forgot t{ie humbleness of her gift. As she placed the bouquet on the altar, a miracle is said to have occurred. Pepita’s ordinary weeds burst into brilliant red blooms. They were named “flores de la Noche Buena,” Flowers of the Holy Night. We now call them poinsettias,
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Joel Poinsett Brouglht
It To South Carolina ! .
The introduction of the poinsettias
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