Content
- Worth knowing about the origin of the sunflower
- Fat supplier of the North American Indians
- Ornamental plant of the Incas
- Use as an oil supplier in Europe
- Popular garden plant
- Tips & Tricks
The sunflower is native to North and Central America
Worth knowing about the origin of the sunflower
The sunflower is native to North and Central America. Already more than 4,500 years ago, it was cultivated by the North American and Mexican Indians. It was not until 1552 that Spanish sailors brought the seeds of the sunflower to Europe.
Fat supplier of the North American Indians
The North American Indians grew the sunflower early on as a food plant. They used the oily kernels to enrich the food with fat.
In archaeological excavations in North America, the researchers found particularly large nuclei of the sunflower, which are dated to an age of several dew years. They conclude that already the Indian native peoples cultivated the sunflower as a food plant.
Even today, the sunflower is a state symbol of the US state of Kansas.
Ornamental plant of the Incas
In the Incas, the sunflower was worshiped primarily as an image of their god.
This observation is made by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizzaro at the beginning of the 16th century.
The Incas considered the flower as an ornamental plant and did not use it as a crop, presumably because they had a large selection of other fatty plant species available to them.
Use as an oil supplier in Europe
The seeds of the sunflower were soon used after being distributed in Europe as a substitute for coffee or baked goods. Only in the 19th century did the sunflower reach its present importance as an oil supplier.
Since then, it has been industrially grown in many countries for the production of sunflower oil for food, industrial oil and medicinal oils. Due to its high content of unsaturated fatty acids, the oil is considered particularly healthy. Main growing areas are:
Popular garden plant
Not only as a useful plant, the sunflower is often planted in this country.
Since planting and care are not complicated and the sunflowers can cope well with the local climate, the flower has become one of the most popular garden plants.
Tips & Tricks
The botanical name of the sunflower Helianthus anuus derives from the Greek words helios = sun and anthus = flower. Anuus means that the plant is annual. Presumably, however, the Greek plants are a different species than the ornamental and useful plants known today as sunflowers.