My first year in New Mexico, I was amazed that people actually bought poinsettias. I'd once lived along the California coast where a big poinsettia bush grew in the backyard. It was a very happy plant and I was forever hacking away at it. To me it was nothing but a weed.

Now that I have to buy poinsettias, I've changed my tune. Besides all the decorated trees this time of year nothing says Christmas more than the Poinsettia.

The plant was discovered in 1825 when Joel Robert Poinsett, the first U.S. Ambassador to Mexico noticed an unusual plant growing on the hillsides of southern Mexico. He was a hobby botanist and upon returning to the states worked in his greenhouse in South Carolina to create a cultivar of the novelty plant.

Today, with 109 varieties, the Poinsettia Euphorbia pulcherrima is the number-one flowering potted plant sold in the U.S., even though its sales period is just six weeks.

Poinsettia Facts

• The Aztec Indians prized poinsettias and made a reddish-purple dye from the bracts, the modified colorful leaves. They also made a medicine against fevers from the sap.
• Alternative names for the poinsettia are Mexican flame leaf, Christmas star, Winter rose, Noche Buena, Lalupatae, Pascua and Atatürk çiçeği, Turkish for Atatürk's Flower.
• In Central America the plant is called Cuitlaxochitl, meaning excrement flower, because birds eat the seeds, and then it appears the plants germinate from bird droppings.
• It's a common misconception that poinsettias are toxic. But people sensitive to to latex may suffer an allergic reaction. And the sap can cause irritation.

A Poinsettia Monopoly

Until 19 years ago, the Paul Ecke family of Encinitas, California had a virtual monopoly on poinsettias because of a secret technology that grafted two varieties. This made it possible to get every seedling to branch, resulting in a bushier plant. Then 10 years ago, a university researcher discovered the secret and published his findings. Now producers in all 50 states grow poinsettias, but the Eckes are still considered leaders when it comes to the poinsettia.

The Paul Ecke Ranch grows over 80 percent of poinsettias in the United States and 90 percent of all the flowering poinsettias in the world got their start at the Paul Ecke Ranch.

Choosing a Poinsettia

• Check for drooping leaves (too much water), white flies and spot anthracnose. They are prone to disease.
• Choose plants with rich green, uniformly colored foliage with healthy stems all the way to the soil line. Yellow or missing stems indicate stress.
• Check undersides of leaves for the presence of insects or egg masses. Bracts are sensitive to insecticides.

Learn to Read the "Flower"
The Poinsettia flower is a small, berry-like bud in the center of the bracts. If these are open--exposing many little yellow hairs--the plant has peaked. Poinsettia plants whose "flower" has not quite opened should last 30 days or more.

How Poinsettias Became a Symbol of Christmas
Between 1923 and 1963, the Ecke family produced field-grown poinsettias and began a massive campaign to keep the plant before the public during the holiday season. One strategic placement was on the Bob Hope Christmas Special. The television exposure worked. Now we can hardly think of Christmas without the poinsettia coming to mind too.