Free vintage Poinsettia Drawings and other Christmas Flowers

Get into the festive spirit with a treasure trove of vintage botanical illustrations featuring classic Christmas flowers like the poinsettia, amaryllis, Christmas rose and cactus. Whether you’re dreaming up greeting cards, holiday decor or unique art projects, these public-domain drawings bring timeless charm and seasonal elegance to your creativity.

Besides pine trees, the holly, and the ivy, there are other plants one associates with Christmas.  Here, I’ve curated some vintage Christmas flower illustrations, including poinsettia drawings.

Poinsettias are probably the most popular of all the Christmas flowers.  Over 35 million of them are sold in the US every year. That is a quarter of all potted plant sales.

My mother loved to decorate with poinsettias and would have several plants as part of our Christmas decorations. The main centrepiece on the Christmas table always included poinsettias.

She liked to decorate with poinsettias, not just because of their beautiful, festive red colour but probably because we lived in the tropics at the time.  Poinsettias are plants you associate with warmer climates, so they seemed more appropriate with our Christmas decorations than plants that you associate with colder climates, such as holly and mistletoe.

Personally, my favourite Christmas flowers aren’t poinsettias but Amaryllis. I love their elegant lily-like blooms.  Other vintage Christmas flower illustrations included in this collection include amaryllis, Christmas cacti, and Christmas roses.

The Vintage Poinsettia Drawings

To download any of the following Christmas flower drawings, just click on the title above that illustration. A higher resolution image will open as a new window in your browser.

Poinsettias originally came from Central America, mainly Mexico. They were named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States Minister to Mexico, who first brought the plant to the US in the 1820s.  Before that, the plants were more commonly known as “Mexican flame flower” or “painted leaf“.

Today, the poinsettia is known in Mexico as Flor de Nochebuena, meaning Christmas Eve Flower.

The red “petals” on the plant aren’t actually flowers but coloured leaves called bracts. The flowers are the less impressive little yellow buds in the center of each collection of leaves.

There is a Mexican folktale about how the plant became associated with Christmas.  Legend says a girl in 16th-century Mexico was too poor to provide a gift for the celebration of Jesus’ birthday and was inspired by an angel to gather weeds from the roadside and place them in front of the church altar. Crimson blossoms sprouted from the weeds and became poinsettias.

Since then, they have become a popular Christmas display in Mexican churches. The star-shaped leaf pattern is said to symbolise the Star of Bethlehem, and the red colour represents the blood sacrifice of Jesus’s crucifixion.

1. Curtis’s Botanical Magazine Poinsettia Drawings

This vibrant poinsettia illustration is from the famous Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, vol. 63, published in 1836.

2. A Double Flowered Poinsettia Painting

This lovely chromolithograph was printed in 1876 and is from the Welcome Collection.

3. Single Poinsettia

 Colour drawing of poinsettia from Familiar Indian Flowers (1878) by Lena Lowis.

4. Childs’ Fall Catalog

A Christmas Poinsettia drawing of Santa plant on the cover of the Children’s Fall Catalogue 1923.

5. Drawing Studies of a Poinsettia

A watercolour painting of Poinsettias by Sophia L. Crownfield, 1937.

Amaryllis Christmas Flowers

I love the vast, bright, tall flowers of the Amaryllis plant. They are my favourite Christmas flowers. I’m not the only one who thinks that Amaryllis flowers are perfect for Christmas with their rich colours and eye-catching style. Amaryllis has replaced poinsettias as Britain’s favourite Christmas flower.

Amaryllis is a bulbous flowering plant originally from South Africa. They are perfect for Christmas as they bloom for several weeks in the winter, usually just in time for the holidays. Also, they are easy to look after. If you provide them with a little water and place them in a warm, brightly lit spot, they’ll become beautiful, festive showstoppers in just a few weeks.

According to the Greek legend, the plant was named after the nymph called Amaryllis, who fell in love with a shepherd called Alteo. Due to unrequited love, Amaryllis pierced her heart with a golden arrow and started spreading drops of blood along the way toward Alteo’s cottage for 30 nights in a row. On the thirtieth day, beautiful flowers appeared from the soil covered with her blood and melted the “ice” around Alteo’s heart, who finally fell in love with Amaryllis.

In the Victorian Language of Flowers, amaryllis means “pride, determination and radiant beauty”.

6. White Amaryllis

White Amaryllis look just as festive as red Amaryllis at Christmas.

An 18th-century watercolour of a white amaryllis by José Joaquim Freire

7. 1730 Amaryllis Water Colour

Watercolour of an amaryllis from the Karlsruhe flower book, around 1730.

8. Amaryllis Formosissima

This Amaryllis painting is from the Rijksmuseum collection

9. Amaryllis Belladonna

Amaryllis Belladonna from the book “Flore des serres et des jardins de l’Europe” published in 1861.

10. Amaryllis Aulica

Christmas Rose

The Christmas rose (Helleborus niger) or black hellebore, is not actually a rose but an evergreen perennial flowering plant in the buttercup family. It is poisonous, but an essential plant in medical botany.

The Christmas rose gets its name for several reasons; the flowers resemble wild roses, and it’s a plant that flowers in the winter. There is also an old legend that the Christmas rose sprouted in the snow from the tears of a young girl who had no gift for the baby Jesus.

11. Christmas Rose

 Christmas rose (Helleborus niger) illustration from Medical Botany (1836) by John Stephenson and James Morss Churchill.

12. 1868 Christmas Rose

Christmas rose painting from the Dutch botany book “Flora: images and descriptions of trees, shrubs, annual plants, etc. occurring in Dutch gardens” by H. Witte and A.J. Wendel (1868).

13. Christmas Rose – Flora Homoeopathica

This vintage Christmas flower image is from “The flora homoeopathica: or, illustrations and descriptions of the medicinal plants used as homoeopathic remedies” by Edward Hamilton (1852).

Christmas Cactus

The final flower in this collection of Christmas flowers is that of the Christmas Cactus (Schlumbergera).

Christmas cactus originates from Brazil and can bloom in a wide variety of colours, including red, purple, orange, pink, and cream.

The cactus is now a common houseplant that blooms around Christmas. They live for 20-30years and, unlike other cacti, thrive in cooler conditions.

There are more paintings of other varieties of cacti on Pictureboxblue, too.

14. Christmas Cactus

This 1897 print of a Christmas cactus is from the book “Favourite flowers of garden and greenhouse” by Edward Step. 

This cactus is featured in the Christmas Botanical print collection. And there is a tutorial here for a paper crafted cactus.

14. Paxton’s Christmas Cactus

Christmas cactus painting from “Paxton’s Magazine of Botany and Register of Flowering Plants” (1841).

15. Curtis Botanical Christmas Cactus

This cacti painting is from Curtis’s botanical magazine v.66 (1839).

Other Christmas/Winter Blooms

Snowdrops

Delicate and pure, snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) are among the first flowers to bloom in winter, often pushing through the frost or even snow. Their white, nodding petals symbolise hope, purity, and renewal, making them a quiet but powerful emblem of the Christmas season. In vintage botanical art, snowdrops are often celebrated as the first sign that light and life are returning after the long winter darkness.

Print 16: Christmas Snowdrops

Print 17: Art Nouveau Snowdrops

Art Nouveau snowdrop illustration is part of Maurice Pillard Verneuil‘s collection of Art Nouveau flower illustrations.

Cyclamen

Cyclamen are cheerful winter bloomers that bring a splash of colour indoors when most gardens are resting. With their heart-shaped leaves and elegant upswept petals in shades of red, pink, and white, they make lovely Christmas plants. Symbolising love and sincere affection, cyclamen are often given as festive gifts and add a graceful touch to winter windowsills and holiday displays.

Print 18: Cyclamen Flowers 1895

Print 19: Johannes Simon Holtzbecher-Cyclamen

Camellias

Camellias are elegant winter-flowering shrubs that brighten the cold months with their glossy green leaves and stunning blooms in shades of red, white, and pink. Often called the “winter rose,” camellias symbolise admiration and perfection. In many regions, they bloom right around Christmas, making them a beautiful addition to festive floral displays.

Print 20: Red Camellia Louis Van Houtte

From the book Flore des serres et des jardins de l’Europe.

Print 21: White Camellia-Laurent Berlèse

From the book Iconographie du genre Camellia, 1839.

Other Christmas Prints

There are lots of decorative examples of the Poinsettia type in the American Type Founders Specimen book.

Don’t forget to check out the vintage holly illustrations, another Christmas plant.

Besides these fabulous Christmas flower pictures, there are many more botanical flower collections on the site, including roses and gorgeous peonies that look fabulous all year round.

Other seasonal vintage picture collections include:

• Scandinavian Christmas cards
• Vintage Christmas images
• Christmas Patents

The Poinsettia drawings would be great images to use for the Christmas eyeglass ornaments or the upcycled tuna can ornaments.

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