Cheerful, towering and unmistakable, the sunflower has travelled a long way — from wild American plant to a beloved flower grown in gardens all over the world.
Sunflowers are native to the Americas, where Indigenous peoples domesticated them thousands of years ago. Far from being just ornamental, they were a valuable crop — grown for their seeds, oil, flour and even dyes.
Spanish explorers carried sunflower seeds back to Europe in the 1500s, where the plant spread first as a striking garden curiosity and later as a serious crop.
The sunflower found a real home in Eastern Europe. One reason it boomed there: sunflower oil wasn't among the foods restricted during Orthodox Lent, so it became hugely popular. Russia and Ukraine grew to be among the world's great sunflower producers — and the flower became woven into Ukrainian identity. Today the sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine, and in recent years a widely recognised symbol of solidarity.
No flower has a more famous portrait than Vincent van Gogh's radiant "Sunflowers" paintings of the 1880s. And the flower carries warm meanings the world over — adoration, loyalty, happiness and optimism — fitting for a bloom that turns its face to the light. (In the USA, Kansas even calls itself the "Sunflower State.")