12/7/2022 | Marina Montez-Ellis, Garden Program Specialist

Euphorbia pulcherrima is a deciduous to semi-evergreen shrub native to Mexico and Guatemala. The plant is named flor de noche buena in Spanish and cuetlaxóchitl (kwet-la-sho-she)in Náhuatl, the Aztec language. Mayans referred to it as k'alul wits. Cuetlaxóchitl was prized by the Aztecs, who used the plant for decorations, medicine and dyes. The Téenek Indians in southeastern Mexico use k'alul wits for obstetrical hemorrhaging and snakebites.

During the16th century Franciscan monks, who evangelized the Mexican town of Taxco, used the late-blooming flower with bright red bracts to decorate the nativity scene. In 1828 Joel Poinsett, the first US ambassador to Mexico, viewed the bright red and green plant on a visit to Taxco and sent cuttings home to South Carolina. By the 1900s the name "poinsettia" caught on as botanists attributed the US introduction to Poinsett.