Little Known Tidbits About Sunflowers

Bonnie's Sunflowers © 2012 Claudia Ward

OK, it's official, the flower I once detested and despised is now on the list of things I most appreciate. It's taken several friends (and you know who you are) and a couple of photographers who I follow to open my mind and eyes to these strange beauties. So here are a few tidbits I've learned about sunflowers:

• The scientific name for sunflowers is helianthus annuus, derived from the Greek word helios meaning sun, anthos meaning flower, and annuus meaning annual.
• Cultivated sunflowers have many uses, their seeds are edible and are made in to sunflower oil, their leaves can be used as cattle feed, and  a fiber in their stems can be made in to paper.
• The flower "petals" in the center of a sunflower, the ones that are so mesmorizing when you really look at them, are generally in a spiral pattern. They are oriented toward one another "by approximately the golden angle, 137.5°, producing a pattern of interconnecting spirals, where the number of left spirals and the number of right spirals are successive Fibonacci numbers" (Wikipedia) - that makes Mother Nature quite the mathematician in my book!
• The tallest sunflower (in Germany) was measured at over 24 feet tall.
• Only the buds of the sunflower are heliotropic (follow the sun); at the end of the bud stage, sunflowers all face East.
• The sunflower is:
  • the state flower of Kansas,
  • the national flower of the Ukraine,
  • often used as the symbol of the "green movement",
  • the symbol of the Vegan Society, and
  • VERY photogenic!

 

Comments

[ally]

I echo that- the background is gorgeous.
I LOVE sunflowers and am glad to hear your opinion has rotated around to an appreciation of the flower. Maybe it was researching the fun facts that skewed your attitude and helped you recognize their originality and worth.
Our payoff as your beautiful photographs are the result.

[Robert]

WOW! love the way the background looks too!

[Mary]

Another great post about my favorite flower, Claudia. Thanks!

[Charlie Dickerman]

And a field of them will give your eyes a heart attack!