Sunflower is a very cheerful looking flower. True to its name Sunflower, it can brighten up your days with its bright color. There are no other reason of why I choose sunflower as the name of this website other than the cheery, jolly and merry feeling evoked when looking at the flower.

Below are some facts about Sunflower:-

1. Saw some billboard saying Hulu Selangor is the Sunflower District, but never saw sunflower anywhere except the picture on the billboard.
2. Sunflowers come from the south and west of the United States of America
3. North American Indians used to grow sunflowers for food and medicinal use. They also used the seeds and petals for dyeing as well as pressing the seeds to make hair oil
4. Sunflower cultivation in South-west America has been dated as far back as 3000 BC
5. The Spanish brought sunflower seeds back to Europe around 1510
6. By 1616 it was considered to be a common plant in English gardens
7. In the late 1800’s Vincent Van Gough, the impressionist painter, produced the first of his ‘Sunflowers’. In 1987, Christies sold one of these paintings for £24,750,000
8. Colonial American settlers believed that sunflowers planted around their house would help ward off Malaria
9. Sunflowers became popular as a food source in Russia because sunflowers were not on the Russian Orthodox Church’s list of oil-rich foods (such as butter) that were forbidden during the Lenten period
10. In Peru the Aztecs worshipped sunflowers
11. The sunflower is the national flower of Russia
12. The botanical name for sunflowers is Helianthus. The Greek word ‘helios’ means sun and ‘anthos’ means flower
13. The French word for sunflower is ‘tournesol’ or literally “turn with the sun”
14. 50% of the world’s sunflowers are grown in the Ukraine
15. The stems of sunflowers were used to fill lifejackets before man-made materials
16. Dwarf sunflowers were used by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd in their search for plants that could draw radioactive toxin out of contaminated land
17. Sunflower seeds are now used for oil, birdseed and snacks
18. The seeds are a rich source of calcium plus 11 other minerals
19. A fully developed, large sunflower head may yield any where from 1,000 to 1,500 seeds
20. The largest and plumpest sunflower seeds for eating will be found near the edge of the flower ring
21. Each sunflower head is made up of around 4,000 individual tiny flowers
22. Each mature flower yields 40% of its weight as oil
23. Experiments during 1861 showed that a sunflower plant lost 850g (1lb 14oz) of water every 12 hours
24. In the peak growing period, sunflowers can grow as much as 30cm (12 inches) per day
25. The tallest recorded sunflower grown was 7.76m (25 feet) tall and was grown in the Netherlands
26. The largest recorded sunflower head measured 82cm (32.5 inches) in diameter and was grown in Canada
27. The shortest recorded mature sunflower was just over 5cm (2 inches) tall and was grown using the bonsai technique in Oregon, USA