The Poinsettia: Mexican Christmas Legend

With its beautiful, red, star-shape poinsettia is a favorite flower in the United States. in central America it is called "the flame leaf" or "flower of the holy night". Now very popular in the US, the American settlers were not quite familiar with this one only a couple of centuries back. A native of Mexico, it was brought here over a hundred years ago by Dr. Joel Poinsett, the first US ambassador to Mexico. Most of the poinsettias used these days come from California.