I Shall Spread Beauty Around Me! My Name Is Poinsettia!

I once started talking about colors and the role colors come to play into our lives. The colors are there surrounding us, a whole plethora of colors, each of them carrying its own meaning. The more cultures, the more meanings happen to be awarded to colors. But since I do not intend to refer to all the colors, but instead I happen to have a single color in my mind, a color that happens to be associated with Christmas too, I shall introduce it to you. You all know it. It is the color of fire, often associated with passion, blood, the idea of sacrifice and crumpled sheets. But it happens to be at the same time the prevailing color of Christmas and of the so called Christmas holiday plants.

I happened to see red in front of my eyes (not because I was angry, because I was not) these past few days when I came across a plant proudly displaying its red leaves, namely a Poinsettia plant. You must have seen numerous such plants in your friends’ homes, adorning the churches or the porches of your family’s house. It simply spreads color around it and this is what makes it even more beautiful, especially in this winter period when nature is rather bare and lacks color.

I believe this plant comes to be exceptionally beautiful and this beauty becomes more evident when numerous such plants, if possible an infinity of them are brought all together in a single place, some sort of a field of poinsettias. If you tend to make wry faces when hearing this then most surely you either happen to be a person who believes that all this frenziness around flowers is just an exaggeration or you may be a person who simply hasn’t been able to see up to this moment a multitude of poinsettia plants being brought together in just one place. Or, my third option would be to quote the already famous saying stating that “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.” And I could add that after all it all comes down to just a matter of taste, does it?

It may sound like a cliché but every year in this period I tend to be more euphoric (it must be because I sense the Christmas approaching with rather big steps or sometimes even smaller steps, yet approaching). And how could one not start making plans and looking for beauty around him (wishing to witness more and more of such beauty) when every single person (except the cuddling babies or the babies generally speaking) enters some sort of a gift corridor. And what better gift is there to impress a woman if not a plant? Not any kind of plant but one with fiery, red leaves.

This must explain the quite large volume of Poinsettia plants being sold in this period. And since I do not intend to dazzle you with a whole amount of figures (you’ve probably had just enough figures at work, and do not need them more in your reading stuff), you will simply have to believe me or if you insist on finding out clear evidences then the internet is just full of them, just a mouse click distance.

So, if you think those close to you would enjoy having around a crimson colored flower, then I really think poinsettia is just what you have been looking for. Even so, before doing this acquisition I think you should perhaps try to discover what it is there that makes this plant so amazing, and why has it turned out to be a real symbol for Christmas, in one word achieve some knowledge about it. Is there a story behind those crimson colored leaves? Is there any legend hidden behind this flower?

And as such beauty could not come out of no where, this plant too comes to have its own history, its own story, a story coming to account for its beauty and its appreciation. If you happen to dislike or find unsuitable its name then you would be probably enchanted to discover that along the times this plant has received a pretty wide variety of names, coming to be known either as the Christmas star, the lobster flower, Noche Buena, Pascua, Christmas Eve, “Bent El Consul” , but also the Mexican flame leaf. I tend to think that the last one comes to best suit this plant. And since I just enumerated all these names here and gave no explanation I shall do this right now. As you probably can all see, these names come from almost any corner of this planet, where this plant made its victims, victims of beauty if you ask me. In Spain, the flower came to be known as “flor de Pascua” or Easter flower, whereas in Mexico and Guatemala it received the name of “Noche Buena”. Of course every of these cultures managed to deem in this plant a different, newer meaning and this is what gave birth to all these callings, or pampering names.

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet;” – I chose to quote these lines from “Romeo and Juliet”, while looking for a proper way to introduce you into the world of these beautiful holiday plants. And since I was referring to names I though there was no better way to do this than by mentioning the master of it all Shakespeare.

But since this is clearly not intended to be an essay about Shakespeare, but rather about a plant called Poinsettia I shall now mount in the saddle and tell you its story. I rather tend to get mingled in ideas and I even managed to not end it all with the naming part. Did you know that in Chile and the Andes this plant came to be known at some point under the name of “Crown of the Andes”? And if you tended to think that this name came out of pure imagination or just too much creativity, then most surely you have never heard about the legend according to which King Montezuma ordered his subjects to take the flowers to Mexico City, mainly because he noticed that they would not grow at high altitudes.

The plant’s botanical name was assigned by a German botanist, namely Carl Ludwig Willdenow. And just in case you ever wondered what its scientific name was then the mystery is just about to be revealed for you. The story of the scientific name suits the plant if you ask me. It all goes back to the moment in which Willdenow discovered it growing through a crack in its greenhouse; rumors say that when seeing it the German botanist had been razzle-dazzled or better said overwhelmed by its striking crimson color and as such the only name that crossed his mind was that of Euphorbia pulcherrima, meaning beautiful flower or “very beautiful” as other sources state.

It is said that this plant was actually called after the person who brought it to America, namely the first U.S Minister to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett. I guess those of you who happen to be in love with this plant actually knew all this information; even so what I guess you did know is the fact that in modern Egypt this plant is known under the name of “Bent El Consul”, meaning “the consul’s daughter”, and this having in mind the role once played by Poinsett. But much like 1+1 makes 2, so was the case of Poinsett too; what I meant to say is that if this man hadn’t come across this flower in his pilgrimage in Mexico, we wouldn’t have had it in our houses or on our porches nowadays. It is said that after noticing it on the side of the road on a trip in Mexico he decided not to keep its beauty for himself but instead share it with the others and as such he brought some cuttings with him too and rumors say that he used these plants as Christmas gifts (or was it to bring joy to others? I am not sure, yet!).

So, just in case the origins of this plant are still unclear to you, there is no way I could fail to mention them to you. Poinsettias are said to be native to Mexico. Did you ever hear about the Aztecs? You know those people practicing cannibalism and enjoying it! It may be the only facet most of us have become acquainted with when it comes to Aztecs, yet even so, surprisingly or not their name is also connected with the Poinsettia plant. Did the Aztecs have a more sentimental, undiscovered side? Apparently they did. Rumors say that the Aztecs living in Mexico started cultivating this plant a long time ago, in the area near present day Taxco. Amazingly enough this plant happened to be highly appreciated and loved by the Aztecs and their kings; they came to envisage it as a symbol of purity. Now be honest and tell me if cannibalism and love for flowers interfere at some point!

And if you tended to think that the association between this plant and the Aztecs could be translated just in two words, meaning like or dislike, then evidences clearly prove that you are wrong. I say this having in mind the information according to which the Aztecs used this flower to make dyes for clothing and the latex processed from it to treat fever.

Do you happen to know when this flower came to be used first in a holiday celebration? It is said that the Franciscan priests introduced this flowers into a Fiesta, to be more exact the Fiesta of Santa Pesebre, in the 17^th century. This fiesta is in fact described in terms of a “nativity procession”. I mentioned this, just in case you ever wondered why this plant came to be known as a holiday plant.

Is there a day when one can sing “Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear poinsettia, happy birthday to you”? Yes, there is. How could there not be such a day when it has reached an almost sale record in the Christmas period? And if you tended to think that its birthday is December 24^th, then perhaps you should be told that you are wrong. Just in a few days, more precisely on December 12^th you may wish your Poinsettia plant to have a long healthy life around you and those dear to you, coloring your life in red (or whatever other color you may wish it to be) for as long as possible, till death do us apart as a priest might say. I guess most of you did not know this but the Poinsettia plant has even been awarded a national day, December 12. Believe it or not, this day has been celebrated in US since the mid 1800s, meaning to honor the memory of Poinsett.

Indeed red is the traditional color of this plant, but this does not mean that it cannot be found displaying other colors as well. What other colors are there available in Poinsettias? A quite vast palette of colors if you ask me! First there is the red variant, then the white and pink ones; and for those of you who happen to be looking for variety each year, there are the cream variant, the striped, marbled, peach, purple or spotted variants. Or perhaps you would know that there happens to be a so called “Monet Twilight” out there in the world of Poinsettias? Surprisingly enough, there is such a sample and I would choose to describe this version of Poinsettia as follows: a painting of such colors as cream, rose and pink, all these colors brought together to bring some diversity in the otherwise reddish poinsettia.

Have you ever heard about the so called Poinsettia “will-kill-you myth”? You most probably did hear about this myth if you happen to be a poinsettia fan. While looking into the poison part I managed to come across a short, funny poem and I immediately thought of sharing it with you: “Poinsettias are red, / poinsettias are fly /If you eat a poinsettia, / You’ll vomit and die.” All this myth started with the supposedly real story of a two years old child who died after eating a poinsettia leaf. Later on, researchers looked carefully into this matter and managed to discover that all these supposedly veridical facts were in fact nothing but pure bullshit (as some non-traditional people would put it). And just to prove to you that these plants are non-poisonous I have to share with you the facts that clearly support this idea: namely that”a 50 pound child would have to eat 500 bracts to have a sore tummy”. This happens to be at least what the researchers at Ohio State University managed to find out. Now I am not saying that it would be wise for you to rush to use these bracts in your salads, but it would be rather advisable for you to admire them and let their colors pervade to you, practically invade your entire being with their beauty! Wouldn’t this be nice, after inhaling so much toxicity from the world surrounding us? When I say toxicity I really mean all those unpleasant sounds that surround us from time to time, all those traffic noises, in one word (or perhaps more than just one) the daily stress.

But since stress and Poinsettia happen to have nothing in common I shall continue the incursion into their beautiful world, leaving aside the stressful matters of life. I tend to think that poinsettias or the so called Mexican flame leaves as I rather prefer calling these plants are just the right ingredient to cheer up even the grumpiest man carrying on with his life out there in the urban and not only urban jungle. Now you should perhaps admit it and recognize that indeed this plant can brighten up your day and make the people around you happier. As I used to say other times and I am going to stress the idea this time, plants, colorful flowers are just meant to bring light and colors into our lives, being what many rightfully consider to be or envisage as being a divine gift.

You may find this plant quite finicky and hard to keep since it needs some special conditions in order to be able to survive, but even so this does not shadow in any way its beauty, does it? If you think otherwise then you should perhaps take another glimpse at your reddish or pinkish poinsettia and by doing this you will manage to see that the beauty is still there and that it hasn’t vanished or disappeared in the fog (to put it into a more poetic way).

And as I failed to tell you that in fact the colorful part of the Poinsettia plant, what actually manages to attract our undivided attention towards this plant, the colorful leaves are called bracts, I could not but do it right now. At times we may mistake these bracts for the actual flowers but the flowers are really the small, green or yellow parts situated in the middle of the bracts. Beauty demands beauty and generates it, don’t you think so?

And if it were for me to generate beauty or spread it as I prefer saying I have to make use of a poem, a poem entitled “Poinsettia”: “Leaves of pale green…shaped like a star / Much like the one…guiding shepherds from afar. / Blooms red in winter…around Christmas Eve / …Celebrating Christ’s birth…for all who believe. / An American tradition…since the year 1826 / When a US ambassador…made it one of his picks. / Found down in Mexico…along the road growing / …pale leaves of green…changed to red glowing. / Joel Roberts Poinsett…an ambassador of fame / Allowed this unique plant…the honor of his name. / Poinsettia it was now called…this plant with red star / …Associated with Christmases…both near and far / Sadly in 1851 … on the 12^th of December / Joel Poinsett died…a date to remember. / Then Congress took steps …which soon paved the way / …for this date to be known…as National Poinsettia Day.”

Some of you, those looking for poetry will perhaps manage to find little if no poetry in the above lines. It may look more like a summary, sort of a history in lines of this plant. Perhaps this is what was really meant to be. I really do not know. And since I am no poetry critic and I do not pretend to be one I shall let you decide whether it is or not poetic, or perhaps poetic enough for you.

And if there seems to be just not enough beauty or poetry or feeling there then I think the best option would be to take a look towards the beautiful, colorful poinsettia. Or should we look for this poetry in the very legend of the poinsettia plant? Oh, things are not that simple as some red bracts there! There is a legend too! This legend tells that there was once a poor boy who standing in front of the church kept on crying as he had nothing to offer as a gift to Christ. At that time, there was a custom of bringing flowers to the church at Christmas. And as this boy kept on crying there came a good priest who tried to comfort him advising him to pick up any plant that grew up beside the road. And so he did. The legend tells that once picked up the plant’s leaves turned sparkling red. And so this flower made just the perfect and at the same time most beautiful gift for Christ.

Indeed its beauty comes to be recognized even today after centuries and centuries had passed over us and the whole humanity! A beauty appreciated mainly by women as latest figures actually come to prove it; rumors say that in fact women purchase about 80% of the thousands and thousands of poinsettias being sold. Wouldn’t you call this a craving for beauty? I’d call it the fever of shopping, the beauty fever, the fever of bringing joy to the others, the fever of Christmas. And quite a fever since there are just about 100 varieties of poinsettias out there! Matching all tastes, yet carrying the same name and shape – poinsettia!

And so does the following poem: “The cherry-red paint, so vibrant and memorable, beautiful. / It’s set upon its bed of teardrop leaves. / It’s as if a fire is / burning a star, luminous, in / the emptiness of the night– / And the carefully-grown leaves / calm the flame. / The red of heart, love; / and green of youth. / Both used to create the flower of the night: the poinsettia.”