National Poinsettia Day
Visit your local nursery on #NationalPoinsettiaDay
National Poinsettia Day is celebrated across the country on 12 December every year.
The Poinsettia’s connections to the Christmas season date back to 16th-century Mexico.
Legend tells of a girl who worried she had no gift to celebrate Jesus’ birthday because she was very poor. An angel told her to give any gift with love, so she gathered some weeds from along the road. She placed these weeds around the manger and miraculously the weeds bloomed into beautiful red stars.
Joel Roberts Poinsett, an American botanist and the first United States Minister to Mexico, first brought the poinsettia into the United States when he sent cuttings home to Charleston in 1825.
The Poinsettia started to take root in American culture in the early 1920s when Paul Ecke – a second-generation farmer in California – discovered a grafting technique that caused the seedlings to branch. The family initially hawked their Christmas flower at roadside stands, until Paul Ecke Junior advanced the sales of the flowers through shipping and marketing.
The House of Representatives created Poinsettia Day in 2002 to honour the father of the poinsettia, Paul Ecke. The date – 12 December – marks the death of Joel Roberts Poinsett, the man responsible for bringing the plant to the United States.
To celebrate, visit your local nursery or florist, and fill your home with the beautiful poinsettia flower.
Use #NationalPoinsettiaDay to post on social media.
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