Sunflowers…Summer’s Sunny Stars!
When we think about sunflowers, we think about warm and sunny summer days.
The sunflower is a bright, beautiful, and bold flower which has inspired some amazing pieces of art, poems, and stories through the years. Those beautiful bright yellow flowers are enough to brighten your day. They bring up thoughts of long lazy summer days that stretch out from early dawn to late dusk, swimming, fireflies, and the sounds of the ever- present summer cicadas. Sunflowers are the unofficial symbol of summer!
History of Sunflowers
Sunflowers aren’t just beautiful flowers, they’re useful plants that have been used for healing, food, and oil for thousands of years.
Sunflowers are believed to have been grown by American Indians in Arizona and New Mexico about 3000 BC. They were used in many ways – the seed was ground or pounded into flour for cakes and bread or cracked and eaten for a snack, the meal was mixed with other vegetables such as beans, squash and corn and the oil was squeezed from the seed and used in bread making too. Non-food uses include dye for textiles and body painting. Some parts of the plant were used for medicinal purposes including treating snakebite, the oil of the seed was used on the skin and hair and the dried stalk was used as a building material.
Sunflowers were taken to Europe by Spanish explorers around 1500 and the plant became widespread throughout Western Europe, for ornamental and medicinal purposes. In the 18th century sunflowers became popular in Russia too. This is mostly credited to Peter the Great, but the Russian Orthodox Church also played a part by forbidding most oil foods from being consumed during Lent. As sunflowers were not on the prohibited list, they became popular as a food. red and almost black being called the Russian Giant.
By the early 19th century, Russian farmers were growing over two million acres of sunflowers and by the late 19th century, Russian sunflower seed found its way to the USA. Today...
Continue the Lesson and Full Instructions
