Nature Bulletin No. 699   December 22, 1962
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
Seymour Simon, President
Roberts Mann, Conservation Editor

****:POINSETTIA -- THE CHRISTMAS PLANT

Christmas is a day of family gatherings. In each home they have their 
own traditional customs. Some of us cherish those that are peculiar to 
the region where we were children, or the land from whence our 
forefathers came. Most of us have also adopted customs -- such as 
decorating with holly and mistletoe -- that stem from ancient pagan 
ceremonies or festivals but have lost their original significance. There 
are many myths and legends about the origin of our Yuletide customs. 
(See Bulletins No. 135, 173, 211, 326 and 475).

In this country most families have a Christmas tree, a custom that was 
introduced from Germany by Hessian troops in the British army during 
the Revolutionary War. It prevails in Britain and most of northern 
Europe but is unusual in Italy, Spain and Latin America. There, the 
symbol of Christmas and heart of the celebration in a home is not an 
Evergreen tree but a miniature reproduction of the stable and manger 
where Christ was born.

In France that is the crèche, in Italy it is the presepio, and in Spain and 
Latin America the nacimiento. This beautiful custom is said to have 
been originated, using real people and animals, by Saint Francis at 
Assisi on Christmas Eve in AD 1224. In Mexico, at every church and 
chapel on Christmas Eve, the people come to decorate the nacimiento 
with flowers -- especially poinsettia -- and they have a charming legend 
about that plant.

Cuernavaco is an ancient town about 47 miles south of Mexico City. 
There they say that once upon a time a child grieved because she had no 
flowers to take to the manger of the Nativity. As she cried, an angel 
appeared and said: "Lovely child, weep no more. Go pluck a weed from 
the roadside, bring it to the altar, and wait. " The little girl arose, did as 
the angel had commanded, and when she had placed her weed before 
the altar it was transformed into a tall beautiful plant bearing a whorl of 
brilliant scarlet flowers at the top. That is why the poinsettia is prized 
above all Mexican flowers at Christmas.

The poinsettia has become our favorite Christmas flower, too. At this 
time of year, conservatories exhibit thousands of the scarlet, pink, white 
and perhaps yellow varieties of this unique plant and people display 
them in their homes. They enjoy the vivid colors and regard the 
poinsettia almost as much a symbol of Christmas as the Christmas tree.

It is named for Joel Roberts Poinsett of South Carolina who, after being 
appointed the first U.S. minister to Mexico in 1825, saw it growing 
there as a roadside weed and brought the first plant to our country.

Actually, what you admire is not a flower but a colorful whorl of 
modified leaves surrounding a cluster of greenish flowers too small to 
be noticeable. The true flowers are like little vases no larger than a pea, 
and on its side each has a yellow cup, a gland, brimming with glistening 
sticky nectar that, if you taste it, is as sweet as honey. Each vase is filled 
with a bunch of stamens from which projects a typical pistil that bears a 
tiny seed pod on its tip.

Those peculiar flowers have no petals nor sepals and are typical of one 
of the most important families, commercially, in the plant kingdom: the 
Spurges -- about 4000 species of herbs, shrubs and trees. Most of them 
have milky juice and in many it is acrid and poisonous. It includes the 
rubber trees, the manioc or cassava from which tapioca is made, the 
castor bean and croton plants producing oils that are powerful purges, 
and 22 species growing in Cook county, including Snow-on-the-
mountain.

"And so it was, that in the fourth century of our time, Pope Julius I 
established the Festival at Rome on December 25 which is our 
Christmas Day."