Facts about Sunflowers

A couple weeks ago , i heard Michael Jackson ex-wife, Lisa Marie Presley, complaining about Michael's tomb. She said , his tomb is too plain. No flowers in there , especially Sunflower. Sunflower ? Yeah, Lisa said that's Michael's favorite flowers. They made him happy because they looked happy to him. He called them "The Happy Flower".

That makes me want to know, what is so interesting about this flower?? Well, one thing i know about Sunflower, they have delicious seeds =)

Hahaha, just forget it! I'm so hungry right now...

A few hours ago I began the research, and this is what I have put together.

Yap! Here we go ....

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"Helianthus", is the scientific name of the sunflower. It is a combination of two words "Helios", meaning sun and "Anthos", meaning flower.

I have always liked this beautiful flower and had been planning to write about it for as long as I can remember. I knew that I needed to gather information first, and that itself would take me some time.

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?

Well! Now that I have your attention, here are more flowery facts:

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.
• Floating rafts of sunflowers are being used to clean up water contaminated as a result of the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the former Soviet Union. The roots of the sunflower plants remove 95% of the radioactivity in the water by pulling contaminants out of the water.

That's it ! ^^

That's only i got, interesting, huh ?? :)

No wonder Michael loves this beautiful flower so much... I wish i can put some Sunflowers in his tomb :( But it's too far awayy...

Now, just like Lisa's wish and ofcourse you, Mike, you can get Sunflowers around you at the morning ^^

R.I.P. MICHAEL JACKSON