A towering North American annual whose enormous heliotropic flower heads track the morning sun and yield one of the world's most important oilseeds.
Where it grows
The sunflower was domesticated by Indigenous peoples of the central North American plains around five thousand years ago. Today major commercial crops are grown in Ukraine, Russia, Argentina, and France for cooking oil, while the United States and China lead in confectionery seed.
How to recognise it
A single coarse, hairy stem rises one to three metres from a taproot, bearing rough heart-shaped leaves and a terminal flower head up to thirty centimetres across. Bright yellow ray florets form a halo around a central disc of hundreds of tiny tubular flowers arranged in two interlocking Fibonacci spirals.
Garden & cultural uses
Sunflower oil is the world’s fourth-largest vegetable oil by production. The seeds are roasted and salted as a snack across eastern Europe and the Middle East. The plant accumulates heavy metals and was famously planted at Chernobyl and Fukushima to draw radioactive caesium from contaminated soil.
In culture
Van Gogh’s two series of sunflower still lifes, painted in Arles in 1888, are among the most reproduced images in Western art and helped establish the flower as a global symbol of hope and joy.