Seasonal

Poinsettia

A little pot of Christmas red that quietly shows off some of the smartest parts LEGO has hidden in a botanical set.

Brick Rated Score

3.9/5

Set 10370 · 2024

Pieces608

Minifigsn/a

Year2024

Set number10370

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The verdict

This is the one botanical I actually leave out past December, because a poinsettia in a woven basket pot just reads as cosy rather than seasonal clutter.

The build is short and a touch repetitive, but the parts usage kept surprising me, and the finished plant has real presence on a shelf. At around fifty dollars for 608 pieces it is not a bargain by piece count, so you are paying for the display and the recolours. If you love the botanical line or you want one warm holiday accent that packs away for eleven months, this earns its spot.

Best for: Botanical collectors and anyone who wants one classy piece of festive red on the shelf

The full review

What it is

I did not expect a poinsettia to win me over the way it did, because on paper it is just red leaves in a pot. Then I sat down with it and realised how much thought went into faking a living plant out of hard plastic. The set builds a 'Grande Italia' poinsettia, three large red blooms and two smaller ones rising out of a nougat woven-basket pot, and the finished thing stands about 20cm tall with a nice posable spread. What got me is the pot. It is an eight-sided shape held together with jumper plates set at 45 degrees and SNOT bricks locking the angles, and it genuinely reads as terracotta wickerwork rather than a stack of bricks.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the caveats, because they are real. This is a quick build, most people will be done in an hour to ninety minutes, and the flower section leans hard on repetition. You make the same clusters of bracts over and over, and while it never quite becomes a slog, it is closer to relaxing busywork than a puzzle you have to think through. The price stings a little too. Around fifty dollars for 608 pieces is not generous by piece count, and a chunk of that count is small petal and leaf elements. You are paying for a display piece and a genuinely good haul of rare parts, not for volume. The very last central flower is also a bit finnicky to seat once everything around it is already crowded in.

Who it's for

Here is who I think should get it. If you already collect the botanical line, this is an easy yes, the recolours alone justify it and it sits beautifully next to the other plants. If you want exactly one warm festive accent that looks expensive, packs flat into a box for the other eleven months, and never drops needles, this is close to perfect. If you build for engineering and clever mechanisms, though, I would gently steer you elsewhere. There is smart geometry in the pot, but the plant itself is repetition, and you will likely find it too calm to hold your attention.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building this is a low-stress evening rather than a challenge. The six bags run pot to stem to flowers in a predictable path, and once you clock the pattern for one bract cluster you are basically repeating it with small variations. The genuinely interesting stretch is early, in the octagonal pot, where jumper plates at 45-degree angles and SNOT bricks do the quiet work of turning straight bricks into a convincing woven basket. After that it settles into a gentle rhythm you can build with a film on in the background.

The parts are where this set really earns its keep. The small flowers are built from the six-blade ninja star (Shuriken, part 41125), appearing new in both Dark Red and Dark Green, which is a delightfully sneaky way to fake a spiky bloom. The mature blossoms use the Flag 2x4 Triangle mould (5555) that LEGO Friends introduced in June, here in Red for the first time, clipping onto T-bars in Reddish Orange that debuted in the Dungeons and Dragons Red Dragon set. Blonde minifig hair pieces get used throughout as filler under the petals to great effect. New Elementary reckons about a third of the 608 pieces are rare or exclusive, which makes this a quietly excellent set to raid for recolours.

Fun facts

01The big red 'petals' are not flowers at all, they are modified leaves called bracts. The actual flowers are the tiny yellow bits (cyathia) clustered at the centre, which LEGO recreates too.
02The set models a specific cultivar, the 'Grande Italia' poinsettia, a plant native to Mexico and Central America and one of the world's best-selling potted plants.
03The poinsettia is nicknamed the 'Flower of the Holy Night' because the shape of its bracts is said to resemble the Star of Bethlehem, which is how it became a Christmas fixture.
04The six-blade ninja star used for the small blooms is normally a minifig weapon. This set introduced it in Dark Red and Dark Green for the very first time.