Clemson University floriculturist Jim Faust arrived in Manzanillo, Mexico, with an unusual mission: to stalk a population of wild poinsettias growing in their native habitat. His journey began with a man at the airport holding a sign with the word Euphorbia (the genus of the poinsettia plant.) In this interview, Faust talks about his trip into a canyon in Jalisco. And he reviews the long history of the iconic holiday plant, which may first have been cultivated in the botanical gardens of the Aztecs, before being brought to the U.S. in the 1800s by a Southern diplomat named Joel Roberts Poinsett.