Go for the Sunflowers

The sunflowers are one of the sweetest looking bounties of Mother Nature, and the god thing is that you don’t have to plant them separately. Animals like chipmunk families can germinate the sunflower seeds. In fact, they do it more than your lawn or turf can capacitate. Irrespective whether they are deliberately planted, or are brought in by mammals, the sunflowers are a variety of diverse native plants that are rich at the same time.

The remains of the sunflowers have been excavated in archaeological sites in North America as they date from the 3000 BC in the Western Plains of North America and the ancestral varieties of sunflowers have been suggested to be grown in the south western region of America in the river valley areas of the Missouri and the Mississippi.

The sunflowers have been sharing the space of land with the indigenous peoples of North America and they have a close rapport with the early history of the continent. A lot of Indians used the sunflowers for the purpose of food with the seeds being lightly roasted and threshed into flour for being used in the breads or being cooked along with the vegetables.

While the explorers from Spain were looking for treasures during the period of the gold rush, they collected a lot of floral varieties of the New World and thus the sunflowers came to be introduced in Europe owning to its adorning attributes. The sunflowers were common in the British gardens by the year 1616. Quickly, the sunflower spread all over Europe.

The Russian Holy Orthodox Church forbade the use of a lot of foods during Advent and Lent, and some of these included products that grew rich in the soil. Hence, the Russians accepted the sunflower as a source for oil, and a food that could be consumed without breaching the church laws. Soon, Russia became the major producer of the seed of the sunflower for resistant and oil content properties.

The sunflower belongs to the compositae family, which is the second largest among the flowering plants and is highly developed in terms of its evolutionary properties. Sunflowers belong to the helianthus genus (G. helios: sun, anthos: flower).

The sunflower contains 2 kinds of flowers:

? The ray flowers (petals) are broad, lying on the outer edge for luring insects

? The tubular disk flowers are placed centrally requiring the cross pollination of insects for developing into seeds