2791) Leisure Time (Hobbies - Painting): i) About Sunflowers: ii) A painting titled "Sunflowers" by Veteran Wing Commander Anup Banerjee (Anupda):
Links to posts by Anupda on this blog:
1) Leisure Time - (Hobbies): The Musical Journey of Veteran Wing Commander Anup Banerjee (Anupda)
i) About Sunflowers:
"Here and yonder, high and low,
Goldenrod and sunflowers glow."
–Robert Kelley Weeks (1840–76)
With bright blooms that go all summer, sunflowers are heat-tolerant, resistant to pests, and attractive to pollinators and birds. They make beautiful cut flowers, and their seeds are a source of food for birds and humans.
The Sunflower ("Helianthus annuus") is a large annual forb (herbaceous flowering plant other than a grass) with a large daisy-like flower face. Its scientific name comes from the Greek words "helios" (“sun”) and "anthos" (“flower”). The species name "annuus" (which means "annual" in Latin).
The flowers come in many colours (yellow, red, orange, maroon, brown), but they are commonly bright yellow with brown centers that ripen into heavy heads filled with seeds.
The plant was first domesticated in the Americas.
Sunflowers are native primarily to North and South America, and some species are cultivated as ornamentals for their spectacular size and flower heads and for their edible seeds.
Sunflower seeds were brought to Europe from the Americas in the 16th century, where, along with sunflower oil, they became a widespread cooking ingredient.
Presently, the bulk of industrial-scale production has shifted to Eastern Europe, with Russia and Ukraine together producing over half of worldwide seed production.
Sunflower is a widely branched annual plant with many flower heads. The domestic sunflower, however, often possesses only a single large inflorescence (flower head) atop an unbranched stem.
A fairly fast-growing flower for its size, most sunflower varieties mature in only 80 to 95 days.
The largest sunflower varieties grow to over 16.00 feet in height, while smaller varieties have been developed for small spaces and containers and rarely grow larger than a foot tall! The flower heads can reach over 12.00 inches in diameter within the large, seeded varieties.
The genus Helianthus has nearly 70 species of herbaceous plants of the Aster family ("Asteraceae").
The Sunflower is an annual herb with a rough hairy stem 1.00 to 4.50 metres (3.00 to 15 feet) high and broad, coarsely toothed, rough leaves 7.50 to 30.00 centimetres (3.00 to 12 inches) long arranged in spirals.
The attractive heads of flowers are 7.50 to 15.00 cm wide in wild specimens and often 30.00 cm or more in cultivated types.
The disk flowers are brown, yellow, or purple, while the petallike ray flowers are yellow. The fruit is a single-seeded "achene". (An "achene" is an indehiscent fruit - which does not split open when ripe - that is hard, and the seed inside is attached at two places to the fruit wall. Sunflower "seeds" are properly fruits and not simply seeds).
The bright flowers attract pollinators such as bees, butterflies and birds.
The giant flower on sunflowers is actually made up of many tiny blooms. The center of the sunflower, where the seeds develop, is made up of tiny flowers that bees absolutely love.
Sunflowers are commonly grown as a crop for its edible oily seeds.
Apart from cooking oil production, it is also used as livestock forage (as a meal or a silage plant), as bird food, in some industrial applications, and as an ornamental in domestic gardens.
Sunflowers are heliotropic, which is observed in young flowers which means that they turn their flowers to follow the movement of the Sun across the sky east to west, and then returns at night to face the East, ready again for the morning sun. Heliotropism happens during the earlier stages before the flower grows heavy with seeds.
This alignment resulting from heliotropism is observed in an earlier development stage, the young flower stage, before full maturity of flower heads (anthesis).
Young sunflowers orient themselves in the direction of the sun. At dawn the head of the flower faces east and moves west throughout the day. When sunflowers reach full maturity they no longer follow the sun, and continuously face east.
Their heliotropic motion is a circadian rhythm, (the natural cycle of physical, mental, and behavior changes that the body goes through in a 24-hour cycle. synchronized by the sun, which continues if the sun disappears on cloudy days or if plants are moved to constant light).
They are able to regulate their circadian rhythm in response to the blue-light emitted by a light source.
If a sunflower plant in the bud stage is rotated 180°, the bud will be turning away from the sun for a few days, as resynchronization with the sun takes time.
When growth of the flower stalk stops and the flower is mature, the heliotropism also stops and the flower faces east from that moment onward.
This eastward orientation allows rapid warming in the morning and, as a result, an increase in pollinator visits.
Oilseed varieties typically have small black achenes, while those grown for direct seed consumption, known as confection varieties, have larger black-and-white achenes that readily separate from the seed within.
The common sunflower is valuable from an economic as well as from an ornamental point of view.
Sunflowers have many uses such as for producing biodiesel and cooking oil.
But the best use of a sunflower is to brighten the garden patios, even indoor rooms any time of the year.
Sunflowers typically evoke feeling of positivity because of the large, smiling daisy-like flower faces of bright yellow petals. They stand tall taller than many other garden blooms and always seem to perk up our moods. Aside from growing a cheerful pretty flower, there are also many benefits to growing sunflowers.
The leaves are used as fodder, the flowers yield a yellow dye, and the seeds contain oil and are used for food.
The sweet yellow oil obtained by compression of the seeds is considered equal to olive or almond oil for table use.
Sunflower oil cake is used for stock and poultry feeding. The oil is also used in soap and paints and as a lubricant. The seeds may be eaten dried, roasted, or ground into nut butter and are common in birdseed mixes.
They are used for medicine, dye, food and oil and exported.
Sunflower oil is packed with calcium, iron and contains vitamin A and D.
Not all sunflower petals are yellow. There are more than 60 varieties of sunflowers that live across the globe. These vibrant beauties come in all colors of the rainbow from the white light petals of ‘Coconut Ice’, Italian white to the dark chocolate of ‘Chocolate’, ‘Moulin Rouge’ ‘Earth Walker’.
Some of these varieties have striped petals and also multi-colored sunflowers typically grow between five and twelve feet tall. Some grow to over 16 feet in height like the ‘American Giant’, ‘Russian Mammoth’ and “Sun Forest Mix”.
Major threats:
One of the major threats that sunflowers face today is Fusarium, a filamentous fungus that is found largely in soil and plants. It is a pathogen that over the years has caused an increasing amount of damage and loss of sunflower crops, some as extensive as 80% of damaged crops.
Downy mildew is another disease to which sunflowers are susceptible. Its susceptibility to downy mildew is particular high due to the sunflower's way of growth and development.
Sunflower seeds are generally planted only an inch deep in the ground. When such shallow planting is done in moist and soaked earth or soil, it increases the chances of diseases such as downy mildew.
Another major threat to sunflower crops is Broomrape, a parasite that attacks the root of the sunflower and causes extensive damage to sunflower crops, as high as 100%.
ii) The Painting titled "Sunflowers" (by Veteran Wing Commander Anup Banerjee - Anupda):
Link:
My grandmother _ Mrs. D.B. Gupta:
My Uncle Col. Vinod Kumar Gupta:
My grandfather Dr. O.P. Gupta:
1) Leisure Time Short Stories: Friends at the Crossroads
7) Leisure Time Short Stories: Connecting through several lifetimes: The Story of the "Panditji" (Priest) of the Hanuman Temple at Chandrasekhar Azad University, Kanpur
Santosh Khanna has commented:
ReplyDelete"Very interesting post about sunflowers."
Thank you so much for visiting this post Khanna sahab.
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