Poinsettias are also known as the Christmas Star or Christmas Flower.
How did poinsettas become associated with Christmas?
Apparently poinsettias’ association with Christmas comes from a Mexican legend.
It was a custom in a small Mexican town to take a gift to the church on Christmas Eve and then offer it for Christ’s birthday.
One day a poor little boy who was standing alone, outside the church, wanted to present a gift, but he had absolutely nothing, so he began to pray.
Opening his eyes and getting up, he looked down and found below him grew a beautiful plant with scarlet red leaves and beautiful flowers.
The boy believed it was a Christmas miracle, he pulled the plant and brought it into the church to present as his gift to Jesus.
Many years later in 1825, an amateur botanist and America’s first Ambassador to Mexico, Dr. Joel Roberts Poinsett, brought the plant to the US where it was became known as the poinsetta.
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