Your Mother's Day flowers likely passed through Miami

If you or your friends across the U.S. are buying flowers for Mother's Day, chances are high they passed through Miami International Airport.

By the numbers: Flower imports into MIA account for 89% of all flowers entering the U.S. by air, according to the airport.

• About 327,000 tons of flowers — worth about $1.6 billion — fly into Miami annually.

How it works: The shipments mainly come from Colombia and Ecuador, an MIA spokesperson tells Axios.

• The flowers are stored at about 34° at every stop of their journey to keep them fresh, a spokesperson for flower distributors Realterm and C.H. Robinson tells Axios.
• Some of the flowers the companies handle remain in Miami but a majority of them are shipped across the U.S.

Of note: While Miami is known for its imported flowers, our area is also a big domestic producer, according to local wholesaler Berkeley Florist Supply.