There is no more beautiful name for a Christmas Flowering plant than the Flor de la Nochebuena (Flower of the Holy Night), the flame coloured jungle plant, the Poinsettia.

Today the poinsettia is one of the most popular of Christmas plants and has become the centre of Christmas decorations in homes, halls and churches. Its wealth of crimson flowers give an exclusive and exotic glow to the trimmings of the festive season.

The poinsettia as we know it was introduced to the world of plants by a Joel Robert Poinsett, a keen gardener and botanist, who became the United States' first Minister to Mexico in 1825.

One Christmas time, he was strolling through a market place in Mexico city, when he noticed the exotic flaming flowers that the people were buying for Christmas decorations. Poinsett was fascinated with the strange plants that grew wild in the hot lands of Mexico and central America. 'They are painted leaves' he told his friends, and on inquiring about names he was told they were the Flor de la Nochebuena.

On returning home to the United States, Poinsett propogated the 'painted leaves' in his South Carolina greenhouse and sent cuttings to botanist friends around the world. One very grateful botanist named the flower after his good friend and so today the name Poinsett is a household word.

The Poinsett as we know it today is what is called a'tame variety'. The wild variety grows as high as a house but with chemical growth regulators it has been tailored down to a twelve inch variety. The chief supplier today is the Swiss-American grower Paul Ecke. More than 35 million plants are sent around the world from his 500 acre strip of 'Christmas in living colour' in California.

Here in Ireland, the plant is growing in popularity year after year and with the spread of central heating - so kind to the plant - it is accepted as a special Christmas plant. This flame-coloured jungle flower, crimson as the robes of Father Christmas, has in a few years rooted itself as a cheery Christmas decoration in our homes, and what more beautiful flower to lay before our Cribs than the 'Flower of the Holy Night'.