Cuetlaxóchitl: la flor de Nochebuena

30% off All plants (including Japanese Maples) & bagged EarthMix® products + 50% off Poinsettas!*

The plant we know as Poinsettia, with its velvety red bracts and tiny yellow flowers, has been an emblem of the holiday season in America since we were using candles to illuminate our trees. Its common name, Poinsettia, comes from the first U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett, who brought it home to South Carolina in 1828. He cultivated the plant successfully and shared its rich color with friends and fellow horticulturalists, including one John Bartram of Philadelphia. Bartram shared the plant with Robert Buist, a Pennsylvania nursery owner. Buist was the first nurseryman to sell the plant under its botanical name, Euphorbia pulcherrima. Within ten years, it was more commonly known by her Americanized name, Poinsettia. However, due to his significant role in the Trail of Tears and the fact that he was a slave owner, many people are rejecting his name in favor of the original Nahuatl name cuetlaxóchitl (kwet-la-sho-she).

Its Christmas association goes back over a hundred years prior, when Catholic missionaries used the plant to decorate nativity scenes. Her significance goes back even further, being cultivated by Aztecs for its use in making red and purple dyes as well as medicine made with the milky sap for treating fever. Historians have even recounted that the plant was so important, Aztec ruler Montezuma would have it imported to the capital of Tenochtitlan every winter, where it did not naturally grow due to climate. If you would like to learn more about the history of cuetlaxóchitl, I highly recommend this article by Suzanne De Baca.

Our dear departed friend Beth Flood would have sworn they spontaneously combust by February, however many people have been able to keep theirs alive for years. If you want to know how to keep it going year round, the U of Minnesota has the answers. If you haven’t grabbed one for yourself yet, all of our Poinsettias are 50% off!

That’s it for this week, my friends. Stay in touch with us through Instagram, YouTube, or email! Catch the Gardening Inside Out crew Saturday mornings at 8am. Remember our Cyber Sunday 20% off sale** goes through the end of the month too!

Happy Gardening,

Sara Bates

*in store only, through the end of December

**online only Sundays through December, Japanese maples excluded