The Legend of the Poinsettia

Poinsettias are native to southern Mexico and Central America. When Jim and I were missionaries in Oaxaca in deep southern Mexico, it amazed me to see them growing wild there and how big the bushes got. Sometimes, they seemed more like trees.

Joel Roberts Poinsett (for whom we named the flower) brought the flower to America and made it widely popular. He had been the first U.S. Ambassador to Mexico in 1825. He transported the flower to his South Carolina plantation in 1828 and grew them in his greenhouses there.

An old Mexican legend tells how the poinsettia became associated with Christmas:

Pepita, a poor Mexican girl had no present to take before the baby Jesus at her local Christmas Eve services. As she sadly walked to the chapel, her cousin, Pedro, tried to cheer her up. "Any small gift given in love will please Jesus," he told her. Thinking about his, Pepita picked some weeds from the side of the road and made a bouquet. She carried them to the front of the church and reverently knelt down and put her offering below the manger.

Suddenly the plants burst into bright red flowers, and everyone there knew they'd just witnessed a miracle. From that time on the flowers have been called "Flores de Noche Buena" or "Flowers of the Holy Night".

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