Sunday, June 28, 2020 – Sunflowers
- Mary Reed
- Jun 28, 2020
- 7 min read
I
n the landscaping of more than one of the homes I have seen on my daily walks there are sunflowers. Today I walked through the Addison Community Garden and saw this delightful display of sunflowers. I really believe that sunflowers are the most cheerful flower. There is no way anyone can gaze upon a sunflower and not smile.
Native American Uses
According to the National Sunflower Association, sunflowers were a common crop among Native American tribes throughout North America. Evidence suggests that the plant was cultivated by Native Americans in present-day Arizona and New Mexico about 3000 B.C. Some archaeologists estimate that sunflower cultivation dates back before corn, squash or beans.
Sunflowers were used in many ways throughout the various Native American tribes. Seed was ground or pounded into flour for cakes, mush or bread. Some tribes mixed the meal with other vegetables such as beans, squash, and corn. The seed was also cracked and eaten for a snack. There are references of squeezing the oil from the seed and using the oil in making bread.
Nonfood uses include purple dye for textiles, body painting and other decorations. Parts of the plant were used medicinally ranging from snakebite to other body ointments. The oil of the seed was used on the skin and hair. The dried stalk was used as a building material. The plant and the seeds were widely used in ceremonies.
According to Robert M. Harveson’s Sept. 20, 2015 article “Sunflowers and Usage by Native Americans” in the Scottsbluff Star Herald, the Minnesota-based pastor, Gilbert Wilson, studied and documented numerous aspects of the Hidasta Tribe lifestyle at the turn of the 20th century in North Dakota. His narrative provided a detailed, first-person account of sunflower planting, harvesting and cooking procedures. The crop was so ingrained into the Hidasta culture that their name for the lunar period corresponding most closely to April — sunflower planting time in the Northern Hemishpere — is Mapi-o’ce-mi’di or “sunflower-planting moon.”
As another example of the crop’s importance, the Hopis of the southwestern U.S. had a goddess who was the guardian of the sunflower. Her name was Kuwanlelenta, translated as “to make beautiful surroundings.” Sunflowers additionally became part of a creation myth by the Iroquois, who correlated the successful establishment of healthy plants with abundant harvests.
European Developments
According to the National Sunflower Association, this exotic North American plant was taken to Europe by Spanish explorers some time around 1500. The plant became widespread throughout present-day Western Europe mainly as an ornamental, but some medicinal uses were developed. By 1716, an English patent was granted for squeezing oil from sunflower seed.
Sunflowers became very popular as a cultivated plant in the 18th century. Most of the credit is given to Peter the Great. The plant was initially used as an ornamental, but by 1769 literature mentions sunflower cultivated by oil production. By 1830, the manufacture of sunflower oil was done on a commercial scale. The Russian Orthodox Church increased its popularity by forbidding most oil foods from being consumed during Lent. However, sunflower was not on the prohibited list and therefore gained in immediate popularity as a food.
By the early 19th century, Russian farmers were growing over 2 million acres of sunflowers. During that time, two specific types had been identified: oil-type for oil production and a large variety for direct human consumption. Government research programs were implemented. V. S. Pustovoit developed a successful breeding program at Krasnodar. Oil contents and yields were increased significantly. Today, the world's most prestigious sunflower scientific award is known as the Pustovoit Award.
Back to North America
By the late 19th century, Russian sunflower seed found its way into the US. By 1880, seed companies were advertising the “Mammoth Russian” sunflower seed in catalogs. This particular seed name was still being offered in the U.S. in 1970, nearly 100 years later. A likely source of this seed movement to North America may have been Russian immigrants. The first commercial use of the sunflower crop in the U.S. was silage feed for poultry. In 1926, the Missouri Sunflower Growers' Association participated in what is likely the first processing of sunflower seed into oil.
Canada started the first official government sunflower breeding program in 1930. The basic plant breeding material utilized came from Mennonite — immigrants from Russia — gardens. Acreage spread because of oil demand. By 1946, Canadian farmers built a small crushing plant. Acreage spread into Minnesota and North Dakota. In 1964, the government of Canada licensed the Russian cultivar called Peredovik. This seed produced high yields and high oil content. Acreage increased in the U.S. with commercial interest in the production of sunflower oil. Sunflowers were hybridized in the mid-70s providing additional yield and oil enhancement, as well as disease resistance.
Back to Europe
U.S. acreage escalated in the late 70s to over 5 million because of strong European demand for sunflower oil. This European demand had been stimulated by Russian exports of sunflower oil in the previous decades. During this time, animal fats such as beef tallow for cooking were negatively impacted by cholesterol concerns. However, the Russians could no longer supply the growing demand, and European companies looked to the fledgling U.S. industry. Europeans imported sunflower seed that was then crushed in European mills. Western Europe continues to be a large consumer of sunflower oil today but depends on its own production. U.S. exports to Europe of sunflower oil or seed for crushing is quite small.
Cool Facts
According to the University of Arizona, the sunflower originated in America’s prairie states and is the state flower of Kansas, where the golden blossoms grow abundantly in fields and along roads.
Sunflower stems were the original filler material for personal flotation devices/life jackets.
The former Soviet Union grows the most sunflowers. The sunflower is the national flower of Russia. Russians are obsessed with sunflower seeds.
In Victorian times, the sunflower was a symbol for the Aesthetic Movement, a reaction against the Industrial Age. The flower’s simple bold image was carved into chair backs, glazed onto vases and emblazoned on iron railings. Today, it is still a powerful emblem appearing on products such as pottery and in art.
New varieties of sunflowers are continuously being developed. Some of the newer forms are various colors or even have striped petals.
The tallest sunflower was grown in the Netherlands by N. Heijmf in 1986. It was over 25 feet tall with a flower head over 32 inches in diameter.
Art
Sunflowers is the name of two series of still life paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. The first series, executed in Paris in 1887, depicts the flowers lying on the ground, while the second set, made a year later in Arles, shows a bouquet of sunflowers in a vase. In the artist's mind both sets were linked by the name of his friend Paul Gaugin, who acquired two of the Paris versions. Van Gogh began painting in late summer 1888 and continued into the following year. One painting went to decorate his friend Paul Gaugin’s bedroom. The paintings show sunflowers in all stages of life, from full bloom to withering. The paintings were considered innovative for their use of the yellow spectrum, partly because newly invented pigments made new colors possible.
Film
Sunflower (Italian: I girasoli) is a 1970 Italian drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It was the first western movie to be filmed in the USSR. Some scenes were filmed near Moscow, while others near Poltava, a regional center in Ukraine.
Giovanna (Sophia Loren) and Antonio (Marcello Mastroianni) marry to delay Antonio's deployment during World War II. After that buys them twelve days of happiness, they try another scheme, in which Antonio pretends to be a crazy man. Finally, Antonio is sent to the Russian Front. When the war is over, Antonio does not return and is listed as missing in action. Despite the odds, Giovanna is convinced her true love has survived the war and is still in the Soviet Union. Determined, she journeys to the Soviet Union to find him.
In the Soviet Union, Giovanna visits the sunflower fields, where there is supposedly one flower for each fallen Italian soldier, and where the Germans forced the Italians to dig their own mass graves. Eventually, Giovanna finds Antonio, but by now he has started a second family with a woman who saved his life, and they have one daughter. Childless, having been faithful to her husband, Giovanna returns to Italy, heartbroken, but unwilling to disrupt her love's new life. Some years later, Antonio returns to Giovanna, asking her to come back with him to the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Giovanna has tried to move on with her own life, moving out of their first home together and into her own apartment. She works in a factory and is living with a man, with whom she has a baby boy. Antonio visits her and tries to explain his new life, how war changes a man, how safe he felt with his new woman after years of death. Unwilling to ruin Antonio's daughter's or her own new son's life, Giovanna refuses to leave Italy, expressing an intense emotional maturity in her choice. As they part, Antonio gives her a fur, which he had promised years before that he'd bring back for her. The lovers lock eyes as Antonio's train takes him away from Giovanna, and from Italy, forever.
Music
"Sunflower" is a song performed by American rappers and singers Post Malone and Swae Lee. It was released as a single from the soundtrack to the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse and is included on Post Malone's third studio album Hollywood’s Bleeding (2019). The song was released on October 18, 2018. It became Malone's third and Lee's first song as a soloist to top the Billboard Hot 100 and charted in the top ten of the chart for 33 weeks, becoming one of only three songs to achieve this feat at the time. "Sunflower" was nominated for Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards.
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