The quintessential summer flower, sunflowers (Helianthus) have so many amazing uses, from cooking to crafts! Not only are they pretty but also they are an entirely edible plant! See lots of great ways to make the most of sunflowers.
Honored as the state flower in both Kansas and Nebraska, there are about 70 species of sunflowers. Most are native to the Great Plains, Mexico, and Peru.
The Hopi Indians, who believed the sunflower warmed the earth and brought rain, carved wooden sunflowers as sacred objects to help enrich their harvests. They used the seeds for food, ground them into meal and flour, and used the oil for cooking, as a salve, to soften leather, and as a hair conditioner. The stems provided fiber for making cords and rope and the leaves were smoked like tobacco. They even bred a purple-seeded variety to use for dye.
Ethnobotanists think the sunflower may have predated other Mesoamerican crops such as corn, beans, and squash. Sunflower seeds and oil were important crops for the Incas in Peru who created images of the sunflower out of gold. The Spanish brought sunflowers back to Europe with them in the 16th century where they were viewed more as a curiosity than as a food plant. In Russia they recognized the importance of sunflowers as a major oilseed crop and by the 18th century they grew them in abundance.
One of the most interesting qualities of the sunflower is their heliotropism—they turn to face the sun as it travels across the sky. Many flowers have this tendency to move toward the sun but in sunflowers it is very pronounced, In the morning, when the plant is in bud, it faces east. During the day motor cells in the stem tilt the bud to follow the course of the sun across the sky so that it receives maximum sunlight. By evening it will be facing west. Overnight it goes back to the east awaiting the rising sun. Researchers have found that even if the buds are removed, the bare stem will still track the sun. Once the flowers have opened completely, they stop moving and face east.
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