burgundy sunflower with honeybee
Sunflowers overflow with character and fascinate me. They’re available in many different varieties: large, small, gigantic, dwarf, multi-colored, frilled petals, heirloom, and so many more. I searched on Park Seed Company website and found 24 different seed packets for sale. (Note – all reference links will be listed at the end of this blog post.)
Scrub Jay posing for camera
I’ve grown quite a few different varieties over the years myself. Now I have two Scrub Jays that hang out in our yard and diligently assist me. With their help, I have sunflowers popping up everywhere all year-round. I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about them until I looked up sunflower trivia online and learned even more. Here are some of the more interesting tidbits.
An American Native Plant
Sunflowers are native to the Americas, with the majority of varieties coming from North America. They can be annual or perennial. The perennial variety can be invasive and is often classified as a weed.
They were cultivated and widely used by Native American tribes in cooking, medicine, oils and dyes.
Absorbing Toxins
Sunflower plants can be used to soak up toxins and were used at both the Chernobyl and Fukushima disaster sites to help remove radiation.
Sun Tracking
Only the immature flowers track the sun, called heliotropism. Mature flowers generally face east after their stems thicken and stiffen, no longer tracking the sun.
Sunflower Fibonacci spiral pattern
Math!!!
As a geek, this is my favorite fun fact about sunflowers. A sunflower head is actually made up of many tiny individual flowers called florets, up to 2,000 of them. These tiny flowers are clustered in an interconnecting spiral pattern based on Fibonacci numbers and the Golden angle. Fibonacci is one of the first computer programs that computer scientists learn to write – I know that from personal experience.
References:
2 Comments
Submit a Comment
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
When Trina was checking out colleges in Minn. there were large fields of sunflowers. You could watch them following the sun. Interesting. Marion
On our recent road trip up to Oregon we drove through miles and miles of sunflower fields in the northern Central Valley. They were amazing to see.
The first time I ever saw a field of sunflowers was when I was a teenager taking summer biology class. I couldn’t believe my eyes and never forgot it!