From the December 24, 2023, Chicago Tribune "New look at Christmastime flower" by Morgan Lee.
This next part appears to be somewhat "woke." "...attention is again turning to the poinsettia's origins and its checkered history of its namesake, a slaveowner and lawmaker who played a part in the forced removal of Native Americans from their land. Some people would now rather call the plant by the name of its Indigenous origin in southern Mexico." I have to wonder if the article's write would rather call it by its Mexican name?
The name comes from the amateur botanist and statesman Joel Roberts Poinsett, who happened upon the plant in 1828 during his tenure as the first U.S. minister to the newly independent Mexico.
Poinsett, who was interested in science as well as potential cash crops, sent clippings of the plant to his home in South Carolina and to a botanist in Philadelphia who gave the new plant its name, poinsettia after Joel Poinsett.
--Cooter
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