Poinsettia: The Christmas Star

Many people think that the large red leaves of the beautiful poinsettia plant are the flowers.  Actually the flowers are quite tiny and are a yellowish-white color.  The leaves are sometimes also colored pink, white, yellow or green.  The plants, which bloom in December, are also known as “the Christmas Star,” “the lobster flower,” “the Mexican flame leaf,” and “las Flores de Noche Buena.” Since the early nineteenth century, poinsettias have had a close association with the Christmas holiday in the United States.

Poinsettias are indigenous to Mexico and Central America so it makes sense that the first known mention of poinsettias is in Aztec sources. The flowers were used as a source of a red dye to color clothing.  The Aztecs saw the intense red color as a symbol of purity.

There are two very similar Mexican legends about the origins of the plant, both involving children.  In both legends, poor children could not afford to buy flowers so they lovingly collected weeds to place on the Christmas nativity crèche at their church.  As the congregants prayed, the offering was blessed as the weeds turned into a blazing red display.

Franciscan priests in Taxco, Mexico in the seventeenth century used poinsettias in their celebration of the Feast of Santa Pesebre.  A pesebre is a nativity scene similar to a crèche.

The earliest name for the plants was the Aztec cuetlaxochitl.  The most common modern name comes from Joel Roberts Poinsett (1779-1851), who brought the plants to the United States in 1825.  Poinsett was the first United States Minister to Mexico.

The Aztec understanding of the meaning of the poinsettia speaks to me: purity, especially since some Christians have come to associate the intense red color of the plants with the Blood of Christ.  It is sometimes forgotten that the most important Christian holiday is not Christmas, but Easter, which commemorates the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The poinsettia image is from Andre Karwath, a contributor to the Wikimedia Commons Project, and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5 Generic provision.