[edit] Poppies

Wreaths of artificial poppies used as a symbol of remembrance.

Poppies are sold every year as an act of remembrance to fallen soldiers at war.
The poppy's significance to Remembrance Day is a result of Canadian military physician John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields. The poppy emblem was chosen because of the poppies that bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their red colour an appropriate symbol for the bloodshed of trench warfare. An American YMCA Overseas War Secretaries employee, Moina Michael, was inspired to make 25 silk poppies based on McCrae's poem, which she distributed to attendees of the YMCA Overseas War Secretaries' Conference.[32] She then made an effort to have the poppy adopted as a national symbol of remembrance, and succeeded in having the National American Legion Conference adopt it two years later. At this conference, a Frenchwoman, Anna E. Guérin, was inspired to introduce the widely used artificial poppies given out today. In 1921 she sent her poppy sellers to London, England, where they were adopted by Field Marshall Douglas Haig, a founder of the Royal British Legion, as well as by veterans' groups in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The annual selling of poppies is the major source of income for the Royal British Legion in the UK. The poppy has no particular price, it is sold for a donation or the price may be suggested by the individual vendor. The black plastic centre of the poppy was marked "Haig Fund" until 1994.[33]
A small number of people choose to wear white poppies to indicate a preference to look forward to peace rather than backward at the sacrifice. Those who wear the white poppy have, since their introduction in the nineteen twenties, expressed their desire for peaceful alternatives to military action, which may be due to a variety of reasons from the religious, the humanitarian, legal or economic. White Poppies may be home-made, or they are sold by the Peace Pledge Union [34] in the U.K. The Co-operative Women's Guild produced White Poppies in 1933, along with white poppy wreaths.[35] Some of the early white poppies were made of white silk and silver, with the word PEACE across the metal button at the centre.