{"id":30028,"date":"2023-12-24T23:20:56","date_gmt":"2023-12-25T06:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-checkered-history-of-the-poinsettia\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:09:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:09:37","slug":"the-checkered-history-of-the-poinsettia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-checkered-history-of-the-poinsettia\/","title":{"rendered":"The checkered history of the poinsettia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Visitors
Visitors look at a replica of the Lincoln Memorial adorned with different varieties of poinsettias on display at the Smithsonian's U.S. Botanical Garden on Saturday in Washington. Manuel Balce Ceneta\/AP Photo<\/span>AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

SANTA FE \u2013 Like Christmas trees, Santa and reindeer, the poinsettia has long been a ubiquitous symbol of the holiday season in the U.S. and across Europe.<\/p>\n

But now, nearly 200 years after the plant with the bright crimson leaves was introduced in the U.S., attention is once again turning to the poinsettia\u2019s origins and the checkered history of its namesake, a slave owner and lawmaker who played a part in the forced removal of Native Americans from their land. Some people would now rather call the plant by the name of its Indigenous origin in southern Mexico.<\/p>\n

Some things to know:<\/p>\n

The name comes from the amateur botanist and statesman Joel Roberts Poinsett, who happened upon the plant in 1828 during his tenure as the first U.S. minister to the newly independent Mexico.<\/p>\n

Poinsett, who was interested in science as well as potential cash crops, sent clippings of the plant to his home in South Carolina and to a botanist in Philadelphia, who affixed the eponymous name to the plant in gratitude.<\/p>\n

A life-size bronze statue of Poinsett still stands in his honor in downtown Greenville, South Carolina.<\/p>\n

However, he was cast out of Mexico within a year of his discovery, having earned a local reputation for intrusive political maneuvering that extended to a network of secretive masonic lodges and schemes to contain British influence.<\/p>\n

As more people learn of its namesake\u2019s complicated history, the name \u201cpoinsettia\u201d has become less attractive in the United States.<\/p>\n

Unvarnished published accounts reveal Poinsett as a disruptive advocate for business interests abroad, a slaveholder on a rice plantation in the U.S., and a secretary of war who helped oversee the forced removal of Native Americans, including the westward relocation of Cherokee populations to Oklahoma known as the \u201cTrail of Tears.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a new biography titled \u201cFlowers, Guns and Money,\u201d historian Lindsay Schakenbach Regele describes the cosmopolitan Poinsett as a political and economic pragmatist who conspired with a Chilean independence leader and colluded with British bankers in Mexico. Though he was a slave owner, he opposed secession, and he didn\u2019t live to see the Civil War.<\/p>\n

Schakenbach Regele renders tough judgment on Poinsett\u2019s treatment of and regard for Indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause Poinsett belonged to learned societies, contributed to botanists\u2019 collections, and purchased art from Europe, he could more readily justify the expulsion of Natives from their homes,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n

The cultivation of the plant dates back to the Aztec empire in Mexico 500 years ago.<\/p>\n

Among Nahuatl-speaking communities of Mexico, the plant is known as the cuetlaxochitl (kwet-la-SHO-sheet), meaning \u201cflower that withers.\u201d It\u2019s an apt description of the thin red leaves on wild varieties of the plant that grow to heights above 10 feet.<\/p>\n

Year-end holiday markets in Latin America brim with the potted plant known in Spanish as the \u201cflor de Nochebuena,\u201d or \u201cflower of Christmas Eve,\u201d which is entwined with celebrations of the night before Christmas. The \u201cNochebuena\u201d name is traced to early Franciscan friars who arrived from Spain in the 16th century. Spaniards once called it \u201cscarlet cloth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional nicknames abound: \u201cSanta Catarina\u201d in Mexico, \u201cestrella federal,\u201d or \u201cfederal star\u201d in Argentina and \u201cpenacho de Incan,\u201d or \u201cheaddress\u201d in Peru.<\/p>\n

Ascribed in the 19th century, the Latin name, Euphorbia pulcherrima, means \u201cthe most beautiful\u201d of a diverse genus with a milky sap of latex.<\/p>\n

\u201cCuetaxochitl\u201d is winning over some enthusiasts among Mexican youths, including the diaspora in the U.S., according to Elena Jackson Albarr\u00e1n, a professor of Mexican history and global and intercultural studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen a trend towards people openly saying: \u2018Don\u2019t call this flower either poinsettia or Nochebuena. It\u2019s cuetlaxochitl,\u2019\u201d said Jackson Albarr\u00e1n. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be a big cohort of people who are like, \u2018Who cares?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Most ordinary people in Mexico never say \u201cpoinsettia\u201d and don\u2019t talk about Poinsett, according to Laura Trejo, a Mexican biologist who is leading studies on the genetic history of the U.S. poinsettia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it\u2019s only the historians, the diplomats and, well, the politicians who know the history of Poinsett,\u201d Trejo said.<\/p>\n

Mexican biologists in recent years have traced the genetic stock of U.S. poinsettia plants to a wild variant in the Pacific coastal state of Guerrero, verifying lore about Poinsett\u2019s pivotal encounter there. The scientists also are researching a rich, untapped diversity of other wild variants, in efforts that may help guard against the poaching of plants and theft of genetic information.<\/p>\n

The flower still grows wild along Mexico\u2019s Pacific Coast and parts of Central America as far as Costa Rica.<\/p>\n

Trejo, of the National Council of Science and Technology in the central state of Tlaxcala, said some informal outdoor markets still sell the \u201csun cuetlaxochitl\u201d that resemble wild varieties, alongside modern patented varieties.<\/p>\n

In her field research travels, Trejo has found households that preserve ancient traditions associated with the flower.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear to us that this plant, since the pre-Hispanic era, is a ceremonial plant, an offering, because it\u2019s still in our culture, in the interior of the county, to cut the flowers and take them to the altars,\u201d she said in Spanish. \u201cAnd this is primarily associated with the maternal goddesses: with Coatlicue, Tonantzin and now with the Virgin Mary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of his troubled history, Poinsett\u2019s legacy as an explorer and collector continues to loom large: Some 1,800 meticulously tended poinsettias are delivered in November and December from greenhouses in Maryland to a long list of museums in Washington, D.C., affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution.<\/p>\n

A \u201cpink-champagne\u201d cultivar adorns the National Portrait Gallery this year.<\/p>\n

Poinsett\u2019s name may also live on for his connection to other areas of U.S. culture. He advocated for the establishment of a national science museum, and in part due to his efforts, a fortune bequeathed by British scientist James Smithson was used<\/a> to underwrite the creation of the Smithsonian Institution.<\/p>\n

\"Producer
Producer Pablo Perez walks amid his potted poinsettias in a greenhouse in the San Luis Tlaxialtemalco district of Mexico City on Thursday. The universal Christmas icon is native to Mexico where the poinsettia is commonly known as \u201cla flor de Nochebuena\u201d or Christmas Eve Flower and by some as \u201ccuetlaxochitl,\u201d as it is called in Nahuatl. Marco Ugarte\/AP Photo<\/span>AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

flower’s namesake and origins get new attention<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,561,138],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-native-american","tag-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80939,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30028\/revisions\/80939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30028"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}