Let’s start with a comparison with the wild poinsettia on the left and the cultivated, modified modern one on the right. They are extremely different!
So let’s talk about the history of the cuetlaxochitl from its days as an important flower to the Mexica and other Indigenous Mexicans to the modern holiday plant.
Every link tells you a little bit more about the history of this plant and why it is called what it’s called, the story behind it, how it became what it is today, etc. This link pulls in the story of how the flower got the name Flor de Nochebuena and really became associated with Christmas.
Let’s start talking about how the cuetlaxochitl made it to the US in the first place.
In the podcast, I didn’t really go into who Joel Poinsett was as a person. I mostly just talked about what he was doing around his time in Mexico. If you want to do some additional reading about his life, feel free to read about his life here on Wikipedia. Branch off from there as you want.
And we can meet the man who cultivated the modern version of the flower that everyone knows as the holiday flower. This is Paul Ecke Sr. in the middle with his son and grandson. Read about them at this link.
And here is an image of three versions of the poinsettia that have been patented. This link will tell you about the plant patent act and how many of this flower have been patented.
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