Bees on Sunflowers. Pretty neat, huh?
Here's the full picture. You can see my stake on the left is struggling like heck to support the sunflower. It was straight up at one point but has fallen over ever since and the stake hasn't been able to keep it upright since. If it wasn't for the bees on the little flowers, I think this would've been cut down at some point! Is this an unusual sunflower with so many little heads on it?
Not unusual at all! Sunflowers were originally multiheaded beasts, with much smaller individual flowers. I think through cultivation, we selected for plants with one large main flower--but often, flowers form at nodes, also. Especially if the main flower is cut off at the top. There are still many types out there in gardens that naturally just have multiple blooms, too. Sunflowers are pretty cool plants, but I think their pretty faces distract us from their uses and massive history.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's just weird to see many flowers when I'm used to Sunflower being one big monster head on top of a tall stalk. hehe.
ReplyDeleteI have one sunflower that's grown up and has not flowered. It just sits as a healthy green stalk and doesn't do anything.