Sunflower Facts
Learn More About Sunflowers Through These Sunflower Facts
• It’s among sunflower facts that the sunflower’s scientific names is helianthus. Helios means sun, anthos means flower.
• Sunflowers were first cultivated by Native Americans.
• The Aztecs worshipped sunflowers.
• Sunflower facts indicate that at one time the stems from sunflowers were used to fill life jackets.
• A sunflower plant can grow anywhere from three feet to twenty-five feet high.
• Sunflowers are used as edible food for humans and animals, and for vegetable cooking oil.
• When it is growing the head of the sunflower plant turns in the direction of the sun. This following of the sun is called heliotropism.
• Sunflower facts reveal that the sunflower is the national flower of Russia.
• The sunflower is the state flower of Kansas.
• Sunflowers are connected to the zodiac sign, Leo.
• Sunflower seeds can supply the fuel to run biodiesel engines.
• One of the interesting sunflower facts reveals that sunflowers are really 2000 separate flowers attached by one base. The flowers that you see are single ray flowers but these do not produce seeds.
• Many newer sunflowers have green centers instead of brown ones.
• Sunflowers contain linoleic acid which contains omega 3s. So even though sunflower seeds have seemingly high fat content, it is from good fats.
• Sunflowers are thought to have existed 3000-8000 years ago.
• Sunflowers with lower pollen have been developed and help people who have asthma as well as those with allergies.
• Sunflowers are no longer only yellow. They come in orange, red-orange, maroon, tan, peach and striped colors.
• Kansas is known as the Sunflower State.
• Mature sunflowers can have up to 40% of their weight in oil.
• If you want to attract birds to your yard, grow sunflowers.
• Sunflowers are pollinated by bees.
• The tallest sunflower ever grown was 25 feet, 5.5 inches tall.
• According to sunflower facts, the bonsai technique was used on the shortest sunflower ever recorded, which was 2-inches high.
• In French, the word for sunflower is “tournesol,” meaning “turn with the sun.”
• At the sight of the Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union, floating rafts made of sunflowers are being used as a method of cleaning up water. The long roots of sunflowers draw contaminants from the water, removing 95% of the radioactivity.
• Native Americans used sunflowers to make yellow dye.
• The largest head on a sunflower was 32-½ inches and it was grown in Canada.
• According to folklore, it is bad luck to cut down a sunflower.
• Another folk legend says that if you sleep with a sunflower under your pillow, you will become wise.
• Vincent Van Gogh did ten paintings of sunflowers to hang in a bedroom for Paul Gaugin, when he visited him in 1888.