Interesting facts about sunflowers

Did you know that...

• The botanical name of the sunflower is Helianthus which comes from the Greek words 'helios' and 'anthus'
• Sunflower seeds are packed with oils and vitamins
• 75% of Sunflower production is used to produce cooking oil
• Sunflowers can also be found in red and orange - not just yellow
• Originally sunflowers came from North America, where native Indians grew them for food
• In Peru, Aztecs worshipped Sunflowers, made gold sunflower images for their temples and crowned royalty with sunflowers
• The seed head forms a spiral
• Some sunflower seeds found by archaeologists are thought to be 8000 years old
• The tallest recorded sunflower was grown in the Netherlands and grew over 8 meters high
• Each large sunflower head can have over 500 seeds
• The stems of sunflowers were used in life jackets until the 19th century
• Vincent van Gogh painted 12 pictures of sunflowers to hang in the bedroom when Paul Gaugin came to stay with him in Arles in 1888
• Sunflower roots can remove toxins from water and were used to help clean polluted water after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986
• Legend has it that it is bad luck to cut down a sunflower and that sleeping with a sunflower under your pillow makes you wise!

Growing sunflowers