Beautiful Sunflowers

Floridata: Helianthus annuus

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Are they called sunflowers because the flower head looks like the sun or because it follows the sun across the sky, looking east in the morning and ending the day facing the setting sun in the west? Well, this is a "shared" article, so click the link at the top for the rest of the story! From now until Fall you will probably see Sunflowers blooming all over the place.

Okay, I will give you a little more of the article. But your really should click the "shared" link and read the whole article. The wild sunflower from which all the cultivars have been derived grows naturally in almost all of North America from central Canada to northern Mexico. It grows in prairies and dry, open areas, and is sometimes a weed in cultivated fields and pastures. Sunflowers are widely grown commercially for the oil that is extracted from the seeds. Russia is the world's largest producer, Argentina is second and the U.S. is third. Most production in North America is in the northern Great Plains, especially Minnesota, the Dakotas and Manitoba.

The photo is yet another one that I took in Las Vegas last summer at the Bellagio Conservatory, when I also took the photos used in this post from the 4th of July. These beautiful Sunflowers in this picture are not living plants. They are actually fresh cut and inserted into a bed of wet oasis covered with moist sheet moss. They look like a field of dwarf sunflowers growing on the prairie, which is what the designers intended.