Facts about Sunflower

The national flower of Russia; dates back to nearly 3000 years. The Great Russian ruler Peter while visiting Holland was so fascinated by the sunflower, that he took the seeds back to Russia. It has been found that in Peru, the Aztecs worshipped sunflowers. They did so by placing sunflower images made of gold in their temples and crowning princesses in the bright yellow flowers. Interesting??

• Sunflowers are native to the Americas.

•  A sunflower head is made up of 1,000 to 2,000 individual flowers that are joined together to a base. The large petals that are found around the edge of a sunflower are individual ray flowers, these do not develop into seeds.

• The sunflower plant can grow from 3 to 18 feet tall.

• A sunflower only requires 90 to 100 days to grow.

• A single sunflower can have up to 2000 seeds.

• Growing sunflowers is a great way to attract birds to your yard.

• More than sixty different varieties of sunflowers can be found in the world. Out of all these, the most common one is bright yellow, with dark brown centers filled with seeds.

• The giant flower on sunflowers is actually made up of many tiny blooms? The center of the sunflower, where the seeds develop, is made up of tiny blossoms that bees absolutely love.

•  Sunflowers typically grow between five and twelve feet tall (not counting cute little dwarf sunflowers.)

• At the bud stage, sunflowers exhibit a unique trait called heliotropism -- the bud of the sunflower faces the sun at all times throughout the day, starting the day facing east, and ending it facing west.

• In the last few years, a new form of low-pollen sunflower has been created. This method will not only help reduce the risk of asthma for pollen suffers, but also increase the life of the flower itself.

• A domesticated sunflower has a single-stem and a large seed head. This is in contrast to the wild variety that is highly branched with small heads and seeds.

• A distinguishing quality of the sunflower is that its flowering head tracks the sun’s movement. This occurrence is known as "heliotropism."

• Sunflower seeds are used to produce numerous things like cooking oil, medicine, paint, animal feed and biodiesel.

• New kinds of sunflowers that range from orange, tan, maroon or striped petals are being created. Not only are they different in color but, their centers are also green and yellow instead of the original sunflower color we all love.

• The tallest sunflower was grown in the Netherlands by M. Heijmf in 1986 and was 25' 5.5" tall.

• Kansas city has been nicknamed "The Sunflower State."

• 32.5", was the size of the largest sunflower head which had been grown in Canada.

• The Bonsai technique was used to make the shortest mature sunflower record. The sunflower was grown and was just over 2" tall.