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Sunday 29 December 2013

Carnation

According to a Christian legend, carnations first appeared on Earth as Jesus carried the Cross. The Virgin Mary shed tears at Jesus' plight, and carnations sprang up from where her tears fell. Thus the pink carnation became the symbol of a mother's undying love.

It was a rule of Cadburys in Victorian times that women had to leave work when they got married, and wedding gifts of a Bible and a carnation were given to women who left the company to tie the knot.

The Irish writer Oscar Wilde famously wore a green carnation. The green carnation thence became a symbol of homosexuality in the early 20th century, especially through the book The Green Carnation and Noël Coward's song, "We All Wear a Green Carnation" in his operetta, Bitter Sweet.

U.S. President William McKinley always kept a lucky red carnation in his lapel. In 1901, minutes after giving the flower away, he was shot.

In 1907, Anna Jarvis chose a carnation as the emblem of Mother's Day because it was her mother's favourite flower. This tradition is now observed in the United States and Canada on the second Sunday in May. Ann Jarvis chose the white carnation because she wanted to represent the purity of a mother's love.

In the last scene of the movie Magical Mystery Tour, where the four Beatles dance in tuxedos. Paul McCartney wore a black carnation while the others wore red, fueling rumors that Paul was dead.

Oxford University tradition is that all students wear a carnation as well as academic dress to their exams. The color of the carnation is white for the first exam, red for the last and pink for each one in between.

Sources Wikipedia, Songfacts

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