{"id":4564,"date":"2021-12-08T07:49:29","date_gmt":"2021-12-08T06:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/starsforeurope.com\/en\/?post_type=blog&p=4564"},"modified":"2025-07-15T14:52:26","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T12:52:26","slug":"the-history-of-the-poinsettia","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/starsforeurope.com\/en\/blog\/the-history-of-the-poinsettia\/","title":{"rendered":"The history of the poinsettia…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cEuphorbia pulcherrima\u201d has an extraordinarily long history behind it:<\/strong> the Aztecs in Central America already knew and revered the plant \u2013 and in the 16th century the Americans and Europeans also got to know it. In the meantime, it is hard to imagine the Advent season anywhere in the world without it.

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The poinsettia is also known as the \u201cStar of the Aztecs\u201d. The Aztecs lived in Central America in the 14th and 15th centuries and were known for their great botanical knowledge. They knew countless plants, knew about their medicinal effects and their possible other uses.

They admired one plant in particular:<\/strong> a green shrub that could grow up to four metres high and developed beautiful red leaves.

They called this plant \u201ccuitlaxochitl\u201d, which translates roughly as \u201cleather flower\u201d, and they revered it as a symbol of purity because of its magnificent red leaves. The Aztecs grew poinsettias in their gardens and decorated their temples with them.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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They also used the shrub to make a red dye from the leaves and processed the plant\u2019s milk to make a medicine against fever. Probably because of all these uses, it was considered the favourite plant of the Aztec emperor Montezuma.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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The Aztec plant arrives in Europe<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Between 1519 and 1521, several Spanish ships landed on the Central American coast; the crews conquered Aztec territory and captured the legendary emperor Montezuma. The Spaniards soon also took a liking to the exceptionally beautiful and useful plant:<\/strong>

The Spanish naturalist and physician Francisco Hernandez de Toledo even described it in his work \u201cRerum medicarum Novae Hispaniae therausus\u201d (roughly:<\/strong> \u201cList of all medicinal uses of New Spain\u201d).<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Hernandez de Toledo was thus the first foreigner to be fascinated by the \u201ccuitlaxochitl\u201d of the Aztecs \u2013 but he was by no means to remain the last.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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\u201cEuphorbia pulcherrima\u201d is officially named<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

For after the Spanish conquest, more and more Europeans appeared in the area:<\/strong>

Around 1800, for example, Hernandez de Toledo\u2019s compatriots Marin Sesse y Lacasta and Jos\u00e9 Mariano Macin arrived. They were on a research trip when they discovered the \u201cCuitlaxochitl\u201d \u2013 and were so enthusiastic about it that they sent several specimens to Spain.

In 1803, the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt collected some of the plants on site and took them with him on his return to Germany \u2013 thirty years later, so did the botanist Wilhelm Friedrich von Karwinsky von Karwin, who brought back several specimens from a trip to Mexico. Now noticed several times, \u201cCuitlaxochitl\u201d was officially given a Latin name.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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The plant is now also known as \u201cPoinsettia\u201d<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In the \u201cAllgemeine Gartenzeitung\u201d it was named Euphorbia pulcherrima, \u201cthe most beautiful of the spurges\u201d. It soon had another, unofficial name:<\/strong> It also became known as \u201cPoinsettia\u201d. This was thanks to the American politician and amateur botanist Joel Roberts Poinsett, who was the first US ambassador to Mexico and wanted to get to know the country.

During a local excursion, he found the plant and was immediately struck by its beauty.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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He took it with him to the USA, distributed it to his friends and acquaintances, and sent it to botanical gardens all over the country, including Bartram\u2019s Botanical Garden in Philadelphia. There they decided:<\/strong> the plant was so beautiful, it should be cultivated and sold \u2013 and presented it at the Philadelphia Flower Show.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Popular all over the world, especially at Christmas<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

People were enthusiastic and soon the \u201cPoinsettia\u201d was sold all over the country, and in the warmer regions it now grew wild. At the beginning of the 20th century, Albert Ecke, an immigrant from Germany, took advantage of this:<\/strong> Wild poinsettia bushes grew on his land. He found the red leaves very Christmassy, so he sold \u201cpoinsettia\u201d bouquets at Christmas time \u2013 and was hugely successful.

So much success, in fact, that he was soon able to concentrate completely on breeding and selling \u201cPoinsettia\u201d. After his death, his son Paul Ecke took over.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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He had a knack for marketing, called the \u201cPoinsettia\u201d now also \u201cChristmas Star\u201d and ensured \u2013 with advertising and in cooperation with magazines \u2013 that it soon got a firm place in the American Christmas culture.

The \u201cpoinsettia\u201d soon became more and more popular in Europe too. From the 1950s onwards, American and European breeders even managed to turn the \u201cpoinsettia\u201d into a rather small houseplant that could also be kept in a pot.

With that, it had finally made it:<\/strong> it was impossible to imagine the Christmas season without it on both continents (and also in many other countries).<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Visit us on Facebook<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0Pinterest<\/strong><\/a> and\u00a0Instagram<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n

 <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Want to know how a central American shrub became one of the most popular houseplants in Europe, and a worldwide Christmas symbol? In this article we’ll tell you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":4496,"template":"two-column-blog-single","blog_cat":[64,114],"blog_main":[51,139,140],"class_list":["post-4564","blog","type-blog","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","blog_cat-geschichte","blog_cat-vielfalt","blog_main-knowledge","blog_main-variety","blog_main-worth-knowing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starsforeurope.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/4564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starsforeurope.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starsforeurope.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/starsforeurope.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/4564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7906,"href":"https:\/\/starsforeurope.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/4564\/revisions\/7906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starsforeurope.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starsforeurope.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"blog_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starsforeurope.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_cat?post=4564"},{"taxonomy":"blog_main","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starsforeurope.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_main?post=4564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}