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Flanders Poppy (Papaver): Each year, the symbolic red poppy connects Canadians to Remembrance
Day on November 11. At 11:00 am, they reflect upon and observe a minute's silence in memory of the brave people
who lost their lives during the two world wars. Major John McCrae, a First Brigade Surgeon with the Canadian field
Artillery and born in Guelph Ontario, was a World War One victim. He wrote the poem "In Flanders fields, the
poppies blow between the crosses row on row" in 1915 during the second battle of Ypres in Belgium. The vast
fields of wild poppies on the battlegrounds of Flanders were the inspiration for McCrae's poem. Although there
are several red poppy species, it is said that the Flander's fields poppies were those with a central distinct
black cross.
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