It’s Christmastime, and the symbols of the season are everywhere. Christmas plants include numerous conifer species, poinsettia, mistletoe, and holly. Species-wise, poinsettia is the most popular during the holidays with more than 70 million sold per year. This spectacular red-and-green seasonal wonder is, economically, America’s most important potted plant and the United States is the world’s most important producer.
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It wasn’t always this way. How did a gangly coastal plant from Mesoamerica find its way to Yuletide shopping malls? Poinsettia’s path starts in the wild and moves through domestication, repeated cultural appropriation, and eventually, to modern industrial production. This path demonstrates that the plant is more than simply a symbol of Christmas, but a product of both empire and consumption.
Wild poinsettias still grow along the windswept Pacific coastal cliffs of southern Mexico and northern Guatemala. Inland wild poinsettias are rare; a few exist in the Mexican states of Guerrero and Oaxaca. One Guerrero population is genetically close to the cultivated type, suggesting that the initial domestication of the plant probably occurred in that region.
Whether it was domesticated by the Aztecs or an earlier civilization is unknown. By the time that the 16th century Spanish conquered Mexico, the plant was domesticated and in use as an ornamental for various ceremonies. Also, its red bracts, the leaves around the tiny yellow flowers, were the source of a dye, and its milky sap was used for medicinal purposes. In the Aztec language Nahuatl, the plant is called “cuetlaxochitl” or “wilting flower,” reflecting the fragility of the early plants.
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The general policy of Spanish conquerors was to demonize and ban the use of native New World domesticated plants, like amaranth. But they ended up embracing a few indigenous plants such as the one we know today as corn—maize. In the case of poinsettia, Franciscan friars during the 17th century co-opted its use to decorate nativity scenes and altars, as well as to convert Indigenous peoples to Christianity. They renamed it “flor de nochebuena” or “Christmas Eve flower” as it blooms during Christmas time.
An origin legend evolved under Spanish colonial rule to accompany the plant’s association with Christmas. According to the story, a poor girl named Pepita went to see a local nativity scene. Embarrassed that she had no gift, she collected a bouquet of weeds along the way. Reluctant to enter the church with only weeds, she hesitated. Her cousin reminded her that a gift given in love is precious in God’s eyes. When the girl presented the gift of weeds to the child Jesus, they miraculously turned into a bouquet of flor de nochebuena.
The precise details of how poinsettia made its way to the United States remain murky. It is clear that diplomat and amateur botanist Joel Roberts Poinsett played some role in introducing the plant but how, why, or when is unclear. Poinsett was the United States’ first ambassador to the newly-born country of Mexico from 1825 to 1829, when he encountered and appreciated the plant during a visit near the city of Taxco, Guerrero. Under his influence, flor de nochebuena made its way to Philadelphia for its international debut at the 1829 Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s flower show. First called by various names in the United States, such as “Mexican flame flower” and “painted leaf,” “poinsettia”—the name associated with Minister Poinsett—eventually stuck.
As poinsettia became increasingly popular in the United States, Mexican growers sought to export it to the U.S. market. To block them, however, Poinsett warned the growers that he had obtained a patent on the plant, even though no documentation of any kind substantiated the claim to the plant. For such poor diplomacy, his name was appropriated in Mexico in the word “poinsettismo” meaning “arrogant and meddling.”
Nonetheless, Poinsett played a role in shifting how we see the plant today as a consumable Christmas item. By the late 1800s, poinsettia production had spread to U.S. states and even Europe. The current popularity in poinsettia production can be traced back to the efforts of the German migrant Ecke family. Without the role of the family, the plant wouldn’t be as ubiquitous as it currently is today.
Albert Ecke and his family stopped in California in 1900 on their way to establish a vegetarian sanitarium in Fiji. They appreciated the California climate and settled in the Los Angeles area growing several species for the cut flower industry. By 1909, they narrowed their focus to poinsettias. After Albert Ecke passed away, his son Paul moved the business to Encinitas near San Diego.
During the first half of the 20th century, the poinsettia was popular but true to its Nahuatl name, an easily withering plant. A customer could expect its scarlet bracts to persist no more than 10 days. As Fritz Bahr, one floriculturist of the time observed, “Perhaps no other plant or flower we handle during the Christmas week is shorter lived, wilts quicker, or is more disappointing to those who receive it; yet when the next Christmas comes around, there comes again the same demands for Poinsettias and the disappointments of a year ago are all forgotten.”
The Ecke family embraced innovations in poinsettia production. One example is that they shaded their plants to fine tune flowering. Poinsettias are known as short day plants; that is, they require several weeks of long nights to stimulate flowering. The Ecke family covered their greenhouses with adjustable black cloth to create the perfect timing to induce flowering so that plants had the Goldilocks amount of available flowering when they hit the stores.
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Another example is the proliferation of new cultivars by the Ecke family and other growers. Compared to the original cultivars, the newer cultivars offered a variety of advantages, including sturdiness, longer flowering, earlier flowering, dwarfism, bigger bracts, darker green foliage, and beyond. New colors have evolved. Poinsettias now come with bracts of white, orange, yellow, pink, purple, blue, and various shades of red. Some cultivars feature mottled or otherwise bicolored bracts; Ecke’s “Ice Punch” variety has rosy bracts with a white splash in the middle of each.
Paul Ecke, Jr. took over the company in 1963 and aggressively expanded it. In 1992, Paul Ecke III took the reins of what had become known as “Ecke Ranch.” He moved the propagation part of the company to Guatemala (full circle back to the cuetlaxochitl homeland) due to higher competition. The plants could be established there and then “finished” in California for precise timing in delivery to U.S. and international markets. At its height, Ecke Ranch was supplying 70% of the U.S. market and about half of the worldwide poinsettia consumption.
The trend for the agricultural industry over the past several decades has been a series of acquisitions and mergers. For example, the agricultural biotech giant Monsanto was eaten by Bayer Crop Science. The Ecke Ranch faced the same fate. The family sold the company in 2013 to the Dutch Agribio Group, which in turn, merged with the German-based Dümmen, a company that had experience with the European poinsettia market. Nonetheless, the four generations of Eckes have left their legacy.
The poinsettia is not simply a plant associated with Christmas. It is one with roots in the Americas, culturally appropriated over the centuries, and now mass produced for consumption across the world. The next time you pick up a poinsettia from the store, consider the long path it has taken to where it is now.
Dr. Norman Ellstrand is an Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Genetics at the University of California at Riverside and a regular contributor to the Raincross Gazette, Riverside’s online newspaper.
Nathan Ellstrand is a postdoctoral Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) Research Partner Fellow at San Diego State University and a historian of 20th century transnational politics and religion between the United States and Latin America. Nathan Ellstrand is not an employee of DPAA; he supports DPAA through a partnership. The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of DPAA, DoD or its Components.
Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.