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Asteraceae
Sunflower
Helianthus annuus
Adoration, loyalty, longevity, happiness.
- Family
- Asteraceae
- Genus
- Helianthus
- Native to
- North America
- Bloom season
- Summer, Fall
- Type
- annual
- Height
- 1–4 m (some cultivars to 9 m)
- Sunlight
- Full sun (6–8+ hours)
- Soil
- Well-drained, fertile, pH 6.0–7.5
- Water
- Moderate; deep watering weekly
- Hardiness
- 4–9
- Lifespan
- Annual
Did you know
- Young sunflowers exhibit heliotropism — their heads track the sun across the sky from east to west.
- A single sunflower head can contain up to 2,000 individual florets arranged in Fibonacci spirals.
- The tallest sunflower on record reached 9.17 m (30 ft 1 in), grown in Germany in 2014.
- Sunflowers were domesticated by Indigenous peoples of North America around 3000 BCE.
- They are used for phytoremediation — extracting toxins like lead and uranium from soil; sunflowers were planted after Chernobyl and Fukushima.