It is said that Mexico gave the world the poinsettia flower, the symbol of the December festivities. The flower, also known as Easter, poinsettia or simply Christmas flower, celebrates its national day every December 8 and has great biocultural importance for the country. But before becoming the most representative flower of Christmas, the plant went through a series of changes ranging from its uses in everyday life to the symbolism assigned to it at different times. Currently, its importance is so great that in the country there are 429 sites that have the word ‘Christmas Eve’ in their name, mostly roads and urban settlements, according to the registry of geographical names of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).
Origin and meaning of the poinsettia flower
Christmas Eve – from Latin,uphorbia pulcherrimawhat does it mean “the most beautiful”―, is a flower native to Mexico and blooms mainly in the winter season. The story of how this flower became the symbol of Christmas can be told as a three-stop journey: first, in pre-Hispanic Mexico, passing through Taxco, to finally reach the hands of a well-known businessman in the United States who responsible for popularizing it on a commercial level.
In an interview with EL PAÍS, researcher at the UNAM Institute of Biology, Laura Trejo Hernández, shares that the poinsettia flower has great biocultural importance for Mexico that dates back to pre-Hispanic times. The researcher points out that some of the oldest references to the plant can be found in the work General history of things in New Spain, by Brother Bernardino de Sahagún. Thanks to these records it is known that in pre-Hispanic times Christmas Eve was called cuetlaxochitl, which in Nahuatl means ‘flower that withers’. At that time, the plant was used in offerings and rituals, was associated with warriors, and was also used for medicinal purposes.
“In pre-Hispanic times it was associated as an offering flower. […] She was generally associated with mother goddesses, for example with the goddess Tonantzin. So it is clear to us that she was a flower of offering, of ceremony, and also a flower of decoration,” says the researcher. Then, she explains that in the 17th century the Franciscans in Taxco, Guerrero, used poinsettias that grew in the ravines to decorate the nativity scenes or mangers that represent the birth of Jesus. It is possible that there the flower began to be associated with the Christian festival of Christmas. “[En México] We have other very nice plants, but they don’t have this biocultural weight. On Christmas Eve she had it, and that catapulted her,” she says.
From Taxco to the world: the great migration that catapulted Christmas Eve to fame
Trejo has dedicated much of his career to poinsettia research. She recognizes herself as being very passionate about the plant, and she assures that she “loves it very much.” The expert explains that the poinsettia flower as we know it today comes from the State of Guerrero.
During the winter of 1828, American botanist Joel Roberts Poinsett was in Mexico as the first plenipotentiary minister of the United States. Before leaving, Poinsett called a group of fellow naturalists to undertake an expedition and export several shipments of plants and other materials to his home country. Records indicate that Poinsett found the flower in what is now the State of Guerrero, and made several shipments of poinsettia plants and seeds to the Bartram Botanical Garden, Philadelphiawhere it was successfully grown by Robert and Ann Bartram Carr.
To test this hypothesis, researcher Laura Trejo and other specialists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) studied the genetic relationships between wild plants and plants cultivated in the United States. Thus, they concluded that the plants from the State of Guerrero are those that have the genetic material closest to commercial cultivars from the United States. “The evidence makes it very clear to us that the relationship between Christmas Eve and Christian festivities is in Taxco with the Franciscans. Taxco is very important historically because that is where the relationship between Christmas Eve and Christmas occurs,” says the specialist. “It is also very clear to us that it came from Mexico, mainly from Guerrero.”
But the poinsettia did not become popular until decades later. After its successful introduction in Philadelphia, the plant spread throughout the United States during the 19th century. In the 1920s, in Southern California, horticulturist and businessman Paul Ecke began growing poinsettias in fields near present-day Hollywood and marketing it as a typical Christmas flower, taking advantage of the plant’s flowering season. Since then, the poinsettia flower became a symbol of the Christmas festivities in the United States, and even received support from universities and companies for the genetic modification of the plant through crossbreeding.
The poinsettia flower became popular as a Christmas symbol around the world, and in Mexico, for example, it celebrates its own national day every December 8 to remember its historical and cultural importance. The United States also celebrates Christmas Eve every December 12 in commemoration of the date of Joel Poinsett’s death.
The poinsettia flower is a plant with a long history and tradition. Its beauty and symbolism have made it an indispensable element of the Christmas festivities, and the place it occupies today is indisputable for Dr. Laura Trejo. The specialist concludes that everyone should know the story of the poinsettia, “so that everyone can see how beautiful it is, and see it the way I see it,” she says.
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