The Cheery Sunflower
"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows. It's what sunflowers do.”—Helen Keller.
I’ve always loved sunflowers. They remind me to look on the bright side and they bring a smile to my face. It turns out I’m not the only one who finds them cheery.
While walking past the sunflower field at Warm Belly Farm in Cottage Grove, I saw other visitors smiling while viewing these bright yellow flowers with brown centers. Someone had artfully removed select blossoms from a few of them, so the heads resembled smiling faces. Seeing them, I smile even bigger.
Vincent van Gogh, the Dutch impressionist, must have loved sunflowers as well. He painted over ten of them. My mother used to have a print of one hanging in our house, and it added color and cheer, as well as a bit of class and culture, to our modest home.
According to Michael Bryn’s Sep 23, 2024 article, “Sunflower Facts,” https://bit.ly/4h6liYm, the plant from the daisy family is Ukraine's national flower and plays a significant role in their culture. The Ukrainians fabricate sunflowers into wreaths for girls and women, embroider them on clothes, carve them into wooden furniture, and paint them on walls. They are an integral part of their art, poetry, and songs.
Did you know sunflowers come in a variety of colors including bright red? Or that their oil, which is an excellent source of vitamin D, can replace regular cooking oil? It can also be used to condition hair and leather.
Throughout history, people have used sunflower leaves in medicinal teas to treat high fevers, malaria, sores, spider bites, and snake bites.
I found it especially fascinating to learn that sunflowers can absorb toxins from the air and soil. “Cleaning up Chernobyl with Sunflowers,” May 16, 2019, https://bit.ly/4dJLaq7, states that planting sunflowers helped detoxify the air and soil after the catastrophic 1986 nuclear disaster. Max Barnhardt explains sunflowers extract metal compounds from deep in the soil and transport them into the stem, leaves, and flower heads in a process called phytoremediation. So, these cheery flowers can help clean up environmental contamination!
Sunflowers are also being used to detoxify the soil and air in Los Angeles, https://bit.ly/4eGvvcE. Writer Ayana Hawk shares the work of Dr. Rahseeda Hawk, whose research might help solve the serious health problems caused by pollution in urban areas. Sunflowers could assist with cancer from heavy metals, ADHD/ADD from lead exposure, and hypertension and inflammation caused by tiny particles in the air.
Other plants can do this, too, but sunflowers work especially well because they’re large. Sunflowers that absorb radioactive metals or dangerous toxins aren’t suitable for oil, edible seeds, or things like skin products. They need to be disposed of properly. Since our air and soil often have toxins, researchers are hoping to develop a genotype that will resist heavy metals and be healthy to sell for human consumption. Their work shows bright promise.
Sunflowers, which demonstrate “heliotropism,” face east in the morning and follow the sun’s warmth and brightness throughout the day. Maybe it’s time for a trip to the florist to purchase a bunch of these sunny reminders to look at the positives in life. They might just bring a smile to your day.