Here’s a cultivated version of one of North America’s most famous native flowers, with one of yesterday’s stiff breezes undoing her fine long-petaled hairdo.
Sunflower plants were cultivated in this continent at least as early as 3000 BC, according to researchers. This one continually faces east, having gotten too large to follow the full arc of the sun’s rays from east to west, as smaller Sunflowers do.
Native sunflower plants were cultivated for food from wild North American plants by early indigenous peoples. But, Sunflowers also were used for their medicinal, dying, and cooking oil properties. They reportedly were introduced to the rest of the world around 1500 by Spanish Conquistadors returning from North America to Europe. After that, they were subject to considerable international trade. (Brooklin, Maine)