Although the poinsettia is a love-it-or-hate-it kind of plant, it remains the most popular Christmas plant in the United States and the best-selling potted plant overall in the U.S. and Canada. Who knew, though, the star of the Euphorbia family has a whole day to itself? December 12 was National Poinsettia Day.

New Jersey is a big player in the world of poinsettias; it’s fifth among U.S. states for poinsettias sold wholesale, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s most recent Census of Horticulture. Sixty-five nursery operations in the Garden State sold 1.8 million plants worth $10.2 million.

New Jersey also had a seminal role in the poinsettia proliferation. “According to the American Phytopathological Society modern poinsettia culture began with the introduction of the seedling cultivar ‘Oak Leaf’  grown originally in Jersey City, New Jersey, by a Mrs. Enteman in 1923,” the Garden Trust reports. It was the first cultivar suitable for growing in a pot. “From then until the early 1960s, all of the principal cultivars of commercial importance were selections or sports from this original ‘Oak Leaf’ seedling.”

The poinsettia is native to Mexico, where the Aztecs knew it as Cuetlaxochitl — meaning “flower of leather petals.” It was dubbed “Estrella de Navidad” by missionaries after the Spanish conquest, thus the Christmas connection. The plant was introduced to the U.S. by Joel Robert Poinsett, the first U.S. Minister to Mexico, in the late 1820s after which it quickly went into commercial cultivation.

Love it or hate it, the poinsettia now has at least 100 cultivars from which to choose.