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I first learned about the humanity of return ma when I was wandering the aisles of a Houston Hobby Lobby with my ally Jenny and my college boyfriend , both native Texans . Suddenly , I turn into an aisle of giant ( and I intend GIANT ) corsagesque - thing . " What are these ? " I asked . ( I was born in Texas , but I was n’t raise there , so I am not culturally Texan . ) They looked at me with surprisal and Jenny said , " Mums . Did n’t you have these growing up ? "
mommy , it turns out , are a very specific tradition , popular only in Texas ( and parts of Oklahoma ) and are Brobdingnagian , ginormous posy .
Since my black skirmish with the Hobby Lobby mums , I always make a point to involve Texan women that I run into about their mum memory board and almost always , they will email me a photo of themselves in high-pitched school , pass over with a jumbo mum . And yesterday , one of these Texas Quaker sent me a data link to ablog station by Lee Ann Lewisabout Dendranthema grandifloruom , reminding me that for Texans , mum season is just now winding down .
As I have discovered in my casual detecting , not much is known about how , when , or why this custom part , but popular oral history seems to date the tradition to around the fifties . In the heyday of post - war prosperity - and also likely because October and November are prime month for chrysanthemum blooms - eminent school boys began buying chrysanthemum corsage for their dates for return . The chrysanthemums were ornament with ribbons , and certainly with child , but since they were built around genuine flowers , comparatively pocket-sized . The blogReporting Texassays that in the sixties , these mum nosegay cost about $ 3 each .
[ Learn more on how to grow & like for chysanthemums here . ]
Then , Texas being Texas , things get giving and a little crazy . The main blossom transform into one made out ofsilk ribbons , teddy bears were total , flashing light , and yes , air horns . As far as I can tell , you’re able to bribe your engagement a pre - made Chrysanthemum morifolium , which can easy guide to $ 200 or $ 300 dollars , or your mammy can make your date a mum . ( Hence , the supplies I saw at Hobby Lobby . * ) The Dendranthema grandifloruom are worn to school the day of the homecoming game .
- I must have get a gleam of enviousness in my optic , because my college beau , not a homecoming - secret plan - attending sort of person , quickly walked aside to look intensely at anything that was not the gangway of mum madness .
To quote my friendSarah Rufca , a Texan and an editor in chief for Culture Map Houston , who wrote to me about mums , " I can secern you I run into mums in eminent school day so elaborate that the girls wearing them could have come to school defenseless and been entirely covered . "
