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Mother's Day
The second Sunday of May: carnations in the United States and Japan, chrysanthemums in Australia.
What happens
The modern Mother's Day began in West Virginia in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a church service in memory of her mother and handed out white carnations, her mother's favourite flower. The custom grew that a coloured carnation honoured a living mother and a white one a mother who had died. In Japan children give red carnations. In Australia the day falls in autumn, when chrysanthemums are in season, and the flower's short name, mum, has made it the usual gift.
The flowers
Original text by the Phool desk, written with AI assistance. Background: "Mother's Day" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from family to family and place to place. If we have something wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Rose: User:Tigerente, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Chrysanthemum: Muhammad Mahdi Karim, GFDL 1.2, source
- Dianthus: Darkone ( talk · contribs ), CC BY-SA 1.0, source
- Mother's Day: Dave Parker, CC BY 2.0, source