Joey Saves The Day!: Facts about Sunflowers

🎕SUNFLOWER FACTS🎕

Who is ready to learn some facts about sunflowers?

It is such a beautiful day!! So many things to see and do. Have you ever seen a field full of sunflowers? It is such a beautiful sight. Maybe this weekend you could take a trip to the sunflower field with your caretaker/parents. Did you know that sunflowers need at least eight hours of sun a day?

What is your favorite type of flower?

Facts about Sunflowers:

1. Helianthus is the scientific name for sunflowers. There are over 60 species of flowering plants in the daisy family and sunflowers are one of those sixty.

2. Sunflowers are mostly native to North and South America.

3. Sunflowers always face the east in the morning waiting for the sun to start shining and throughout the day the sunflower is able to move towards the sun. When the sun is setting in the west the sunflowers have made a 180 degree turn towards the west. During the nighttime hours the sunflower turns back towards the east so when the sun rises it will get all the warm sunshine and the pattern continues east to west until the sunflower ages and is not able to move anymore.

4. The most common color of sunflowers is yellow, but they can come in other colors such as red, white, and orange.

5. The tallest sunflower ever grown reached 30 feet and 1 inch tall. It was grown by Hans-Peter Schiffer who resides in Germany. The type of sunflower seed he used is called the Kong Sunflower. Most average sunflowers grow from 6 feet to 10 feet tall.

6. At the end of sunflower season, the sunflowers are harvested, and the seeds are dried out. Once the seeds have been dried out people can eat them. Sunflower seeds are sold in many stores around the world.

7. Sunflowers can be either annuals or perennials depending on what species the sunflower is. Annuals only grow once, and perennials can come back the following year.

8. The wild sunflower is the official state flower for Kansas.

9. Bees love sunflowers. Bees carry pollen from one sunflower to another. Pollination is what helps produce the seeds in the sunflower. There are two types of pollination: cross-pollination and self-pollination. Cross-pollination is what the bees do when visiting each sunflower and self-pollination is done by the sunflower itself.

Share a fact about sunflowers with us.