The winter holidays are the poinsettia’s time to shine. Today, National Poinsettia Day marks the anniversary of the death of Joel Roberts Poinsett, the physician and botanist who first introduced the colorful plant to the United States in 1828. He discovered the plant while he was serving as the first US ambassador to Mexico, the plant’s native country, where Aztecs once used it to produce red dye. According to legend, the poinsettia’s association with Christmas began in 16th-century Mexico, where a little girl—too poor to buy a gift—gathered weeds from the roadside and placed them in front of a church altar. They eventually produced lovely red leaves alongside the green ones, and the poinsettia plant was on its way to becoming a Christmas tradition.
The story of the poinsettia
Today in History
More Desktop Wallpapers:
-
Space is for everyone
-
Installation art turns heads
-
National Bison Day
-
Welcome to the Year of the Pig
-
Summer winds down in the Hamptons
-
Festival of British Archaeology
-
Western Monarch Day
-
Atolls in the Maldives
-
Riding the bore tide at Turnagain Arm, Cook Inlet, Alaska
-
Presidents Day in America’s front yard
-
Grand finish of Le Tour
-
Venice by night
-
Iceland awaits the Yule Lads
-
Mountain hare hopping into Lunar New Year
-
American goldfinch
-
Mildred B. Cooper Memorial Chapel in Arkansas
-
Hemingway’s Keys
-
A unique perspective from Italy’s ‘golden sands’
-
A willowy welcome to spring
-
Of moles and liquid nitrogen
-
Modica, Sicily, Italy
-
Digging the birds
-
Inside the Oculus
-
Star Wars Day
-
Going head-to-head with winter
-
Camels in the desert, United Arab Emirates
-
Seonam Temple, South Korea
-
Veterans Day
-
Palouse farmland, Washington state
-
Memorial Day