During the Christmas season, bright red poinsettias appear on greeting cards, in newspaper advertisements, and in manger scenes. How does it happen that this magnificent wildflower from the hillsides of central and southern México became a symbol of Christmas alongside the Three Wise Men, pine trees, and Santa Claus in the United States?

First, let's look at a poinsettia. Where do the green leaves and the colored flower begin and end? Can you find the odd clump of true flowers in the center of the colored leaves? This type of strange flower, along with a milky juice, is characteristic of a genus of plants called Euphorbia. The poinsettia, for clear reasons, is named Euphorbia pulcherrima, the very beautiful euphorbia. But the name "poinsettia", where does it come from?

A South Carolinian named Joel Roberts Poinsett was the first minister to represent the United States of América in México (1825-1829); when he was called home, he took with him several samples of the plants, propagated them and then sold them in his many trips to other countries, this way they soon became associated with his name - and with Christmas.

But Poinsett did not invent the idea of poinsettias as the Christmas flower. Three hundred years earlier, at the beginning of the Spanish colony, the Franciscan missionaries had added them to the manger scene because they had observed that this grand flower was of special importance to the Aztecs, in their literature, medicine and ceremonial rites. It was considered the purest of all flowers by the Indians, and it's known that they carefully cultivated them in the first botanical garden in the world, that of Emperor Netzahualcoyotl, 1428-1472. By careful selection, colors ranging from white to almost black, had been obtained and still exist, even though the scarlet ones remain the most abundant. Thus the missionaries had brought together symbols of great religious importance to both Aztecs and Spaniards and had added the name "Flor de Nochebuena" to the Indian name "CUETLAXOCHITL".