poinsettia

This flower (Euphorbia pulcherrima), native to Mexico and associated with Christmas, has a rather straightforward etymology. It is named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, who served as the U.S. minister (i.e., ambassador) to Mexico from 1825–30. An amateur botanist, Poinsett sent samples of the flower back to the States, and the name poinsettia had become attached to the plant by 1836. The original Latin designation was Poinsettia pulcherrima, but by the 1860s it was classified in the genus Euphorbia.

The association with Christmas began in Mexico. In Mexican Spanish the poinsettia is called flor de Noche Buena (Christmas Eve flower).

I have found a description of the plant that includes the name Poinsettia pulcherima in an article dated 10 March 1836 in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal.

And there is this description of the plant from later in 1836 that appeared in London’s Curtis’s Botanical Magazine:

Poinsettia Pulcherrima. Showy Poinsettia

[…]

By whom this truly splendid plant was communicated to Willdenow’s Herbarium, I am not informed, but it was discovered by Mr. Poinsette in Mexico, and sent by him to Charleston in 1828, and afterwards to Mr. Buist of Philadelphia, who has within a very few years brought together a choice collection of plants.

There are probably earlier examples of the name to be found.

Sources:

Graham, Dr. “Description of Several New or Rare Plants Which Have Lately Flowered in the Neighbourhood of Edinburgh, Chiefly in the Royal Botanic Garden” (10 March 1836). Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 20.40, April 1836, 412. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2006, s.v. poinsettia, n.

“Poinsettia pulcherrima. Showy Poinsettia.” Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (London), Vol. 10 New Series, 1836, 109–111 at 110. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals.

Image credit: Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, 1836. Public domain Image.