Sunflowers are giant, happy flowers that can grow taller than a grown-up, and some can reach over 12 feet high! They have huge bright yellow petals and a big brown center that is actually made up of hundreds and hundreds of tiny little flowers all packed together. Each of those tiny flowers can turn into a seed, so one single sunflower head can hold over 1,000 seeds. Sunflowers originally come from North America, and Native Americans were some of the first people to grow them for food thousands of years ago.
Young sunflowers are very smart because they turn their flower heads to follow the sun across the sky all day long, from east in the morning to west in the evening. At night, they turn back to face east again, ready for the sunrise! This is called “heliotropism,” which is a big word that means “turning toward the sun.” Once sunflowers are all grown up, they stop moving and face east all the time. When the seeds are ready, both birds and people love to eat them as a tasty snack. Sunflower seeds can also be pressed to make cooking oil that many families use in their kitchens every day!
